LANEXANG VILLAGE — The normally peaceful grounds of Wat Thammarattanaram Temple, tucked into this small Laotian enclave on the western fringe of Iberia Parish, were a hive of activity Saturday morning.

The grassy area at the front of the temple compound had been turned into a parking lot, where dozens of vehicles were parked in neat rows. Under the pavilion on the site, more than a dozen tables were set. Each was manned with nurses ready for the crowd of people from the community awaiting a chance to get their COVID-19 vaccination.

“We’re here supporting the vaccination effort,” said Tina Stefanski, director of the state’s Region 4 Office of Public Health. “We have started to push the effort out into the communities, especially where there may be problems with transportation for the at-risk population.”

Lanexang Village, a three-block wide neighborhood near Coteau, is home to hundreds of Laotians and their families, many of them refugees who arrived in the 1980s following the country’s civil war. The temple forms the base and basis of the neighborhood, part religious shrine, part community center for the residents of the area.

On Saturday, in addition to OPH personnel, members of the Louisiana Army National Guard and volunteers, including retirees from the Acadiana Medical Reserve Corps who donated their time, were on hand to help facilitate the process.

“I didn’t even know this place existed,” said Stephanie Boyne, a nurse with the Lafayette Parish Health Unit who was helping vaccinate patients Saturday. “We had 200 vaccines on hand, and are almost out already.”

Stefanski, who was making the rounds from table to table, had her cell phone to her ear most of the time trying to line up more vaccines to distribute.

“We have another event scheduled for St. Martinville, so we will use some of those today,” she said. “But now we will have to procure more for the St. Martinville event. It’s a constant battle.”

Overall, the chaos was controlled at the site. Members of the community waited patiently, filling out forms as they queued up to receive their dose of the Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine.

Barnara Feske, a retired nurse who had come out of retirement to help in the COVID-19 vaccination effort, said the hard part is not getting those who want the vaccine covered, Instead, the challenge is overcoming the resistance from those who refuse the vaccine.

“I don’t know how you can convince some people,” Feske said. “If they had been in the emergency room during the height of the pandemic, maybe they would understand.”

Bayphone “Pom” Foreman, who works as a registered nurse at the New Iberia Behavioral Health Clinic, said she was pleased with the strong turnout.

“We had a lot of walk-up traffic,” Foreman said. “I’m very happy to see this many people show up. Sometimes there is a language barrier and people do not want the vaccine because they think it will make them sick. But the number of people with serious side effects have been very small. I’m very happy that the people in the community understand and came out.”