The Big Shot of the Year Award, Immunize Colorado’s highest honor, is presented to champions of childhood immunizations.

For more than twenty years, Julissa Soto has dedicated her career to being a leading advocate for Latino immigrant equality, inclusion, and health equity in Colorado and throughout the nation. From working with teen parent programs and serving on the Colorado Vaccine Equity Task Force, to promoting health equity at the American Diabetes Association, Julissa has pioneered a wide range of programming designed to empower marginalized communities.

Her advocacy efforts have been highlighted in publications throughout Colorado, as well as Time magazine, and a new documentary from the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition. Her success in leading and managing evidence-based prevention programs serving new immigrants has been recognized at both the state and national levels.

In 2021, Julissa’s innovative programming and community-based intervention strategies earned one of Colorado’s most prestigious honors when Colorado Governor Jared Polis proclaimed September 20, 2021 as “Julissa Soto Day.” Since then, Julissa’s efforts have led to the vaccination of more than 14,000 Latino adults, teens, and children. Today, Julissa is proud to serve as the Founder and Executive Director of Casa Inmigrante, where she continues to provide consulting and education services to partners and agencies throughout Colorado.

Julissa serves on the Health Equity Commission for the Colorado Department of Public Health, and is the Co-Chair of the Regional Accountable Entity (RAE) Program Improvement Advisory Committee (PIAC), which provides guidance on health equity and outcomes. Nationally, she serves on the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)’s National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED) steering committee.

The SOUPer Hero Award recognizes individuals for their dedication and commitment to providing expertise, ideas, and collaborative support for Immunize Colorado’s programs.

Jennifer Reich is Professor of Sociology and Director of the University Honors and Leadership Program at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research examines how individuals and families weigh information and strategize their interactions with the state and service providers in the context of public policy, particularly as they relate to healthcare and welfare. She is author of two award-winning books, Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System and Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, and is editor of the books, Reproduction and Society and The State of Families.

Dr. Reich is a member of the Colorado Vaccine Equity Taskforce and the Institute for Science and Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Her work has been featured in media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and Newsweek, and on the Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World.

The Sure Shots are nominated by friends or colleagues and are selected based on their leadership, collaboration and advocacy in the field of immunizations.

Mary Randolph, RN, was raised on a ranch in southwest Colorado, where she had her first encounters with vaccination. As a child, it was her job to vaccinate all the calves during branding season - roughly 300 - 400 cows each year. At the time, she didn’t know she would eventually be working to vaccinate people.

Mary graduated from nursing school in 1997 and began her nursing career at Southwest Memorial Hospital in obstetrics and gynecology. In July 2002, she was hired as the Director at Dolores County Public Health. As the Director of this small, single-nurse agency, Mary ran all the programs including Vital Records, Immunization, Women, Infants and Children, Emergency Preparedness, Communicable Disease, Tobacco, Environmental Health, and more. She attributes a large part of Dolores County Public Health’s success to the department’s Administrative Assistant, Charlotte Miller, who is instrumental to the immunization program.

Throughout her time at Dolores County, Mary has had the opportunity to vaccinate many families and watch their children grow up. Mary will retire from Dolores County in June 2022, after nearly 20 years. She will miss many things about public health, including the colleagues she’s worked with and seeing children come in for vaccines. In her retirement, Mary hopes to spend more time with her grandchildren and continue working as a professional photographer.

"Throughout her career, Mary has built strong, sustaining relationships with schools, day care centers, and senior centers to educate the public and promote the importance of immunizations throughout a person’s life. During her tenure at Dolores County Health Department, she has single-handedly coordinated numerous vaccination clinics, and has had countless conversations with vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-resistant patients. She is an adept listener and answers each patient’s questions and concerns with compassion and respect. She has been dedicated to continuously educating the community on the importance of immunization and health."

- Charlotte Liming, Administrative Assistant, Dolores County Public Health

The Sure Shots are nominated by friends or colleagues and are selected based on their leadership, collaboration and advocacy in the field of immunizations.

Servicios de la Raza (Servicios), is a nonprofit 501c3 organization, founded in 1972 by community activists in the Chicano civil rights movement in Denver. Servicios’ mission is to provide and advocate for culturally responsive, essential human services and opportunities. Since their founding 50 years ago, Servicios has continued to respond to the unmet needs of the most vulnerable members of the Denver community through a variety of programming. Servicios currently offers behavioral health services, health insurance enrollment, re-entry services for adult offenders and justice involved youth, services for victims of domestic violence and general crime, substance misuse services, a food pantry and clothing bank, HIV and STI services, financial empowerment services, employment, education, and training opportunities, resource fairs, a youth empowerment program, and COVID vaccination and health screening clinics.

Servicios continues to serve populations who live on the margins and rarely have access to culturally and linguistically responsive services. Because of the value placed on the community, culture, and language, Servicios provides culture-centered approaches that are solidly rooted within the Latino community experience. What initially began as an effort to support the underserved Latino community of Denver, has expanded to all communities across the state of Colorado, irrespective of age, race, gender, sexual orientation. All are served with respect and dignity. Learn more about Servicios’ current offerings at www.serviciosdelaraza.org.

"Servicios has remained steadfast in providing and advocating for culturally responsive, essential human services and opportunities in the Denver Metro area and across the state of Colorado. Since day one of the pandemic, Servicios has been an active provider of information and services to perpetuate COVID-19 prevention, education, and intervention, and to improve the availability of COVID-19 vaccines. To-date, the Servicios team has organized close to 50 vaccination clinics and successfully provided over 12,000 free COVID-19 vaccinations to low-income community members, many of whom are Latino and vaccine-hesitant."

- Courtney Holmes, Behavioral Health Practice Facilitator, Colorado Access