Iowa Nurses Get Super Bowl Tickets, Courtesy of the NFL
The National Football League announced last week that they were providing free tickets to Super Bowl LV for 7,500 vaccinated healthcare workers. It was the league's way of thanking some of America's frontline workers who've been faced with the impossible job of assisting COVID-19 patients for the last year. While most of the workers will be from the area surrounding Tampa, where the game will be played, at least two of them will be from Iowa.
Samantha Jensen and her mom, Billie Kucharo, are both nurses that received free tickets for the game, thanks to the generosity of the NFL. They just had to be vaccinated for COVID-19 before attending. That was simple enough for Kucharo, who got her vaccine at work. Jensen had more difficulty, though, according to WHO-TV. After getting put on a waiting list, she finally got the call for an appointment to receive the vaccine.
Jensen is an operating room nurse at Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. Kucharo helps in the operating room and does scheduling at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Des Moines. They'll each get a ticket to next weekend's big game between Tampa Bay and Kansas City, and also received an invite to a party in Tampa. They have to pay their own travel expenses.
Neither woman says they feel deserving of the tickets, but, as fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, they're thrilled to receive them. Samantha predicted to WHO-TV that Kansas City would win over Tampa Bay in a shootout, 48 to 42, while Billie thinks K.C. will be victorious by two touchdowns, 42-28.
Do you know any other Iowa healthcare workers that received free tickets to the game? If you do, tag them with a shout-out below. Thank you to ALL healthcare workers across the nation for everything they've done and continue to do. Every. Single. Day.