Need a free COVID-19 test in Bluffton? Local church to host weekend event

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and VaQueVa la Revista — a Bluffton-based Latino media company that publishes a monthly magazine and airs radio programs and a Facebook Live television news program — are co-sponsoring a free drive-thru COVID-19 testing event Saturday at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church.

The event is from 10 a.m.-4 p.m, according to the DHEC website. Sponsors, VaQueVa’s Facebook page says, include Super Internacional and Blanca Martinez, a local Realtor. Alberto Ortega, director of VaQueVa, said the National Guard would be there to help with logistics.

Ortega said the event is open to all. Information about the event appear on VaQueVa’s Facebook page in both Spanish and English.

As of Tuesday, Beaufort County had more than 2,000 cases of COVID-19 while South Carolina had 60,000. At least 984 people have died statewide since the pandemic began.

St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church is located at 31 St. Gregory Drive in Bluffton.

This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 12:00 PM.

Kate Hidalgo Bellows

The Island Packet

843-560-9619

Kate Hidalgo Bellows covers workforce and livability issues in Beaufort County for The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. A graduate of the University of Virginia and a native of Fairfax City, Virginia, she moved to the Lowcountry to write for The Island Packet as a Report for America corps member in May 2020. She has written for The New York Times, The Patriot-News, and Charlottesville Tomorrow, and is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She has won South Carolina Press Association awards for enterprise reporting, in-depth reporting and food writing.