After a 29-year run, the annual Free Flu Shot Saturday is ending. That’s the word from its founder and only medical director, Dr. Charlie Barnett, who began the event in the waiting room of his medical practice back in the fall of 1992.
“I had a patient complain about paying for a flu shot and he said something like all you rich docs just soak people for shots like this. Why don’t you do something for the community and do them for free?” Barnett says. “That’s when the idea for this event came to me and we did it.”
Dr. Charlie Barnett
From those beginning years, the event became a fall staple throughout Knoxville and Knox County involving volunteers first from the Knoxville New Sentinel and its Empty Stocking Fund and the Knoxville Academy of Medicine. A few years later the Rotary Club of Farragut and Knoxville’s five other Rotary clubs stepped up along with student nurses from the University of Tennessee College of Nursing. Knox County Schools have hosted six shot sites on Saturdays for many years. Rain or shine. But hopefully not on Saturday to conflict with UT football.
For Barnett, from the start, it has been a true labor of love. His partner in getting this event off the ground was Dr. Bob Montgomery. “We did a lot of good during these 29 years and I’m cool with it ending,” said Barnett. “It has run its course and it’s time to move on. I’ll miss the community involvement and catching up with old patients.”
Barnett, now 71, was 41 when it all began. He and his brother, Dan, were members of the Rotary Club of Farragut and in 2003 approached the club’s board of directors about becoming volunteers, handling the administrative work at the sites each year and helping with traffic and crowd control. Farragut Rotary made the commitment and within a few years had the other five clubs in Knoxville involved. Both Barnetts are still members of the Farragut club and Dan is a past president.
Charlie Barnett cited the impact the Covid-19 pandemic and the public’s reluctance to receive vaccinations; the availability of free flu shots at drugstores, grocery stores, clinics, the Knox County Health Department and in doctors’ offices, plus the cost of the vaccine. “The flu vaccines are manufactured overseas and the cost now is incredible,” he said. “When we started, the shots were $1.98 each. Today it’s $38 per shot.”
Throughout the years, donations given during the events have gone to the News Sentinel Charities’ Empty Stocking Fund, which began in 1975. Year by year in the last several years those donations have been dwindling as the number of people receiving their flu shots has declined.
“We’ve done a lot of good with our partners and I hope the community appreciates it,” Barnett added.
Tom King has served at newspapers in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and California and was the editor of two newspapers. Suggest future stories at tking535@gmail.com or call him at 865-659-3562.