But the high school freshman has recently been helping hundreds of people in the Chicago area get vaccinated as nationwide demand for the shots continues to far outstrip supply, leaving residents frustrated and desperate.

That people need help registering for vaccinations stems from an underlying systemic shortcoming: The U.S.

Amid that chaotic landscape, more than 24,000 people have joined the Chicago Vaccine Hunters Facebook group, where members plead for help finding appointments and drop leads to potential openings.

People requesting the time slots have shared a lot of sad stories, Benjamin said.

A spokeswoman for the Chicago health department, Erica Duncan, said vaccine supply was “very limited” and urged patience as the city works to make the shots more easily accessible.

He said he learned to navigate vaccine registration systems in January while helping his grandparents in Florida find appointments.

Then a journalist who talked to his class for career day urged the students to watch a local news segment, in which Benjamin learned about the Chicago Vaccine Hunters group.

He soon found his Facebook Messenger inbox overflowing with requests for help from people who said they were too slow or technologically unskilled to sign up themselves!

To keep up with demand, Benjamin created a Google Form that people could fill out to ask for assistance.

The information flows into a spreadsheet now accessed by about 50 volunteers whom Benjamin recruited to help secure appointments.

My mother and her friends couldn’t get coronavirus vaccine appointments, so they turned to a stranger for help.

After several days of making appointments, Benjamin said he has learned some tricks.

Benjamin estimates that he and his group of volunteers, known as Chicago Vaccine Angels, had helped about 370 people as of Wednesday and that he had made about 119 of those appointments himself.

Local nurses have started reaching out to him directly to alert him to extra vaccine supply, he said, and he hopes to coordinate a mass vaccination event with a local health-care system?