SWAMPSCOTT — It started with family. Diana Rastegayeva wanted to help her loved ones get vaccinated against COVID-19, so she began helping them register for their shots. She launched an email newsletter called “Tips and Tricks for Phase Two,” offering up her expertise gained from directly booking appointments for friends and family.

Soon, her distribution list grew to hundreds of people, and she found herself booking appointments for people she had never met before. She heard from others on her email list with similar situations, saying that they wanted to keep helping, but weren’t sure how.

“They, like me, got very proficient at booking,” she said. “They would say, hey, I’m out of people I know to book, so I’m willing to kind of keep helping book other people, but I don’t know where to find them.”

On Feb. 20, Rastegayeva, a Swampscott native who now lives in Somerville, launched the website Massachusetts COVID Vaccination Help, a volunteer-run organization that offers free booking help to people around the state. 

“I was at my in-laws’ with my husband (when I launched the site),” she said. “As we were leaving my father-in-law said, are you ready for how this is going to explode?”

Explode it did. As of March 29, the organization had made appointments for nearly 12,500 people. They have around 500 volunteers who speak more than 20 languages. Some of those volunteers, Rastegayeva said, aren’t even in Massachusetts themselves, but still want to feel like they’re making a difference during a difficult year. 

Rastegayeva’s mother, Irma Rastegayeva, is also a volunteer with the organization, and maintains their social media presence. The Swampscott resident said that the feedback from people they have helped has been overwhelmingly positive. Some volunteers have received cards, flowers and chocolate in the mail from the patients they have signed up.

“We use a Slack channel to communicate on the back end, and basically every few minutes somebody’s posting a screenshot of a text message where a person is basically saying, ‘Thank you so much, it’s incredible. We’ve been trying for two weeks and didn’t get anywhere and the volunteer found an appointment the next day,’” she said.

Diana Rastegayeva agreed, saying that she has felt deep gratitude from the people they help.

“The thing that’s been really interesting is how many of the messages are not just about the appointment,” she said. “It’s about the experience of being cared for and feeling seen, feeling that their specific needs are taken care of. This experience, knowing these are people doing this of our own desire, restores their faith in humanity.”

Patients can request an appointment online by entering their own information or by entering their contact information to receive a call from a volunteer. They can also call the organization’s toll-free hotline, which offers help in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Once a patient enters the queue, volunteers working nearly 24/7 monitor appointment openings throughout the state and match people to locations near them. Diana Rastegayeva said that unless a volunteer needs more information from a requester, the first message they send the requester is generally a congratulations that they have been signed up for their shot.

She also specified that requesters are prioritized based on a number of factors, rather than being entered into a first-come-first-served line. Residents of the hardest-hit communities in Massachusetts, people of color, non-English speaking individuals and people over the age of 75 receive extra priority for booking.

This is for good reason: distribution of vaccines in Massachusetts has shown stark racial disparities. According to the state’s vaccine data report released April 1, more than 33 percent of white residents have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to 22.3 percent of Black residents and 14.8 percent of Latino residents. 

“We have plenty of requesters who are in many of these categories,” Diana Rastegayeva said. “It’s great that we’re able to help so many of those individuals.” 

To reach even more people, the volunteers have begun outreach to community groups across the state, like councils on aging and local groups like North Shore Community Development Corporation. For the organizations that have the resources, volunteers with Rastegayeva’s group have been able to train others to help their own communities register for the vaccine; for smaller groups, they have been able to spread the word about the services they offer.

“Some of the stories that are coming back are the grandparents who now will be able to meet their grandchildren for the first time. They could hug their brother, their sister,” Irma Rastegayeva said. “The 12,000-plus appointments that have been booked, that’s more than 12,000 families whose life can now be different because of the vaccine. It’s just amazing, the human element of this.”

To request free help booking a vaccine appointment, visit macovidvaxhelp.com or call 1-888-4321-VAX.