AUSTIN, Texas — Lourdes Zuniga has a busy schedule. It revolves around juggling commissions, running the nonprofit for which she serves as executive director, and coordinating events for volunteer coalitions. Her main priority right now is fixed on reversing a dangerous trend of COVID-19 infections among Latinos.

In an effort to reverse that pattern, activists like Zuniga have taken it upon themselves to improve outreach and testing among vulnerable populations—actions that advocates insist the city hasn't taken effectively.

“Our community has a distrust with government organizations, and so we decided to do it in a trusted place where they can feel safe,” she said.

By being persistent, Zuniga was able to secure funding for COVID-19 tests from the city and with other volunteers, organized a testing day for frontline workers at a faith-based site. It was a chance for community activists to show city leaders they have the know-how to operate within the community.

“We decided to address our community and not wait for leaders to execute that. I think that we are capable of collaborating and executing things that we don’t see done at city level," said Zuniga.

Well over 200 people got tested that day. Civic leaders had already approved a task force weeks ago, but members of this volunteer task force say they’re more in tune with Latinos and the feedback from the community was immediate.

“They got some health care, they got some resources, they got some help, and I think that proves that our community is craving for care and they’re afraid. We’re all afraid,” said Zuniga.

Lourdes says having shown the volunteer test drive worked it’s now up to city leaders to scale that operation up.

“The people who we engaged with for the past six weeks, that didn’t work. So that only shows that we’re only serving a very small portion of our community, so the challenge is to be open to make more partnerships,” she said.