Hennepin County is no longer requiring its thousands of volunteers, who do everything from library work to trash collection on highways, to be vaccinated for COVID-19.

County officials in the last month started to consider changing the policy requiring vaccination for its volunteers, which had been in place since September 2021, before recently deciding to lift the requirement. Vaccination continues to be mandatory for the county's 9,000 employees, with those refusing to comply possibly facing discipline.

As the pandemic has waned, county officials have evaluated case data and weighed changes to policies such as mask wearing and access to buildings, said Michael Rossman, the county's chief human resources officer. Such was the case with the vaccination of county volunteers.

Some volunteer work is done remotely or involves little contact with employees, Rossman said. Throw in volunteerism that is done outdoors in the summer, and lifting the vaccination requirement became the right thing to do to keep the volunteer program vibrant, he said.

"We know some people might consider this a little controversial, but so were other policy changes we have made during the pandemic," he said. "The county board is in favor of this move."

As buildings and services shut down during the pandemic, so did the number of volunteers. In 2019, Hennepin County had 4,147 volunteers, nearly half of whom worked at the county's 41 library branches. In 2020, the overall number of volunteers dropped to 1,640. Last year saw a resurgence, with 2,909 volunteers.

When the county required all new volunteers to be fully vaccinated for COVID last year, it provided for medical or religious exemptions. Eight volunteers applied for a religious exemption, and six received it, Rossman said; the other two are pending.

County officials made sure they were legally within their rights to mandate vaccination for their volunteers, Rossman said.

"It was decided that safety should be first," he said. "We don't want to risk people who hadn't gotten COVID-19 or had medical conditions from potentially getting sick."

This policy upset Cindy, a mother whose 15-year-old daughter couldn't volunteer at the library because she wasn't vaccinated. Cindy, who didn't want her last name used because she doesn't want pushback for her anti-vaccination stance, didn't think her daughter should have had to file for an exemption.

Cindy raised her concerns with county officials, saying that federal legislation doesn't require a specific reason why a person would seek a vaccine exemption. Two weeks ago, she was told the county no longer required its volunteers to be vaccinated.

"A victory!" Cindy wrote in an e-mail. "It gives me hope that Hennepin County backed down on this mandate. But where does it end?"

Rossman said volunteers help the county provide services and keep in touch with the community. The Hennepin County Library's branches provide the most popular volunteer activities, but volunteer opportunities include animal-assisted therapy, 12-step addiction programs, data entry, veteran mentoring, donation drives and general community events.

There's also tree planting, weather observation, master recycling and composting programs and Adopt a Highway trash collection. More than 60 special deputies with the Sheriff's Office volunteer thousands of hours, Rossman said.

Maintaining a robust volunteer program was difficult during the pandemic, but he said there wasn't any lack of interest. A 2021 survey of library volunteers said that 92% wanted to continue doing the work.

Now, the volunteer program is slowly ramping back up, Rossman said. The county was able to adapt to some degree during the pandemic with remote work, which helped knock down barriers for volunteers with transportation problems and other issues, he said.

Rossman is pleased the vaccination policy for volunteers has been dropped — at least for now.

"We monitor the COVID-19 situation every week," he said. "If the numbers change, we won't be afraid to pull back again."