UW Student from Colorado Wins $300 for Reporting COVID Vaccination

A junior accounting major from Windsor, Colo., is the second winner of a $300 prize in a weekly drawing for University of Wyoming students who’ve reported being vaccinated for COVID-19.

Sage Walton won the $300 in cash after her name was drawn from among students who’ve reported their COVID vaccinations on the Student Health Service patient portal. The $300 cash prizes, as well as other prizes, will go out weekly until the sixth week of the fall semester Sept. 27.

Two winners of the grand prize, covering up to $4,500 in tuition and fees, will be drawn for the fall semester -- one the week of Aug. 23, the other the week of Sept. 27.

“I decided to get vaccinated as soon as I possibly could because I personally have an autoimmune disorder and I have close family who are immunocompromised. It also gave me a peace of mind knowing that I was a part of building herd immunity against a virus that put all of our lives on halt for over a year,” Walton says. “Getting vaccinated is the smartest, safest and easiest decision I made. The vaccination helps individuals stay safe, but also helps everyone they come into contact with to stay safe. As we all interact on campus, we don’t know what kind of health struggles everyone else could be going through. So, to keep our community safe, getting vaccinated is the best option.”

Walton, who has an honors minor and serves as a resident assistant in UW’s residence halls, says the vaccination reporting process was easy.

“I used the link in the email to upload the quick photo of my vaccination card. Took about two minutes at most,” she says. “Everyone should definitely do it; there’s no harm in it!”

Another student won a Dining Dollars card from UW Dining Services, valued at $100, in the second of the weekly drawings.

While vaccinations are not required for UW students and employees -- instead, they’re strongly encouraged -- students should report their vaccinations once they’ve received them. This allows the university to track overall vaccination numbers. The information is not being used for any other purpose, except to enter those who’ve reported their vaccinations into the drawings for prizes. The university’s privacy protocols are being followed.

To upload documentation to the Student Health Service patient portal, take a photo of your vaccination document and upload the picture here: http://patientportal.uwyo.edu, using your regular UW user ID and password. This is the same portal where students report their mandatory vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella.

Additionally, students can report their vaccinations by emailing photos of their vaccination documents to Student Health at studenthealth@uwyo.edu.

Only those students who submit their COVID-19 vaccination information to Student Health are eligible for the prize drawings. Students who submit proof of their first shots will be eligible for the weekly drawings; to win the tuition and fee prizes, students must have submitted proof of complete vaccination (for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, two doses). Students should watch their UW email accounts on Mondays, as that is when they’ll be notified if they’re prize winners.

Names are drawn weekly from the total pool of students who’ve reported at least one shot. As of Monday, when this week’s drawing took place, 2,231 individual students had reported receiving at least one dose of a COVID vaccine on the Student Health Service portal -- up from 1,814 the preceding Monday (July 12), and up from 1,665 before the incentive program was announced July 9.

In addition to the grand-prize drawings the week of Aug. 23 and Sept. 27 for the semester of tuition and fees, one winner will be selected each of those weeks for an “A” parking permit, which usually is only available to faculty and staff members -- and is valued at $210 annually. The $4,500 award for tuition and fees would be reduced by any scholarship amount a student is awarded and is meant to cover only costs the student or family is obligated to pay out of pocket.

The weekly drawing is for a winner who receives $300 in cash, along with one more winner for another prize. Those prizes include pregame field access passes for UW football games; Dining Dollars cards from UW Dining Services, each valued at $100; and Apple AirPods.

Additionally, five students will each win the prize of a dinner for six with President Ed Seidel and his partner, Gabrielle Allen, at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center. Also included will be catered dinners with Provost and Executive Vice President Kevin Carman, along with Associated Students of UW President Hunter Swilling.

Students in the United States can go to https://vaccinefinder.org/search/ and learn where COVID-19 vaccines are available. They can even narrow the search to look for a particular type (Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson) in up to a 50-mile radius of the zip code they enter.

Students who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons may participate in the drawings by completing a vaccination exemption form found on the Student Health Service website.

For more details on the student vaccination reporting incentive program, go to www.uwyo.edu/alerts/campus-return/vaccination/index.html.