Tsega Habte was so determined to recruit people to her first COVID-19 vaccination clinic that she put her personal cellphone number on the event flier.

When the day finally arrived, she seemed in constant motion, bouncing from station to station, attending to volunteers, answering phone calls from strangers about the clinic targeting the East African community, switching effortlessly between English, Amharic and Tigrinya.

She was like the White Rabbit in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” — but on time and minus the dithering — at the March event at Kedren Community Health Center in South Los Angeles. Habte would appear in one place, in her crisp white lab coat and with her large purse on her shoulder, then suddenly reappear in another.

One minute, she was sitting with an Eritrean elder. The next, she was helping arrange a plate of bagels for volunteers and participants. Blink and you’d miss Habte taking photos with Dr. Jerry P. Abraham, Kedren’s director of vaccines, or sitting with the recently vaccinated to be sure none suffered side effects.

“Are you feeling OK, honey?” she’d ask in her unique accent, a mix of the five tongues she’s mastered. Once certain each person was fine, she’d disappear off to her next stop.

Habte might be considered a busybody in any other context, a meddler too interested in the lives of others. But she meddles for good. The Eritrean immigrant, pharmacist and concerned community member channels her curiosity and frenetic energy into things that matter, like global pandemics. It makes her not just an organizer but an especially effective one.

Nine months and three successful clinics later, Habte’s partnership with Kedren has produced a model for vaccination outreach: targeted pop-up clinics hosted in familiar spaces and promoted and staffed by familiar faces using culturally relevant methods. She’s aided in the vaccination of thousands and is lionized at Kedren, where she’s called “Mama Tsega.”

“You need to do it because you want to do it,” Habte said about her organizing. “If you want to do it because you have a hidden agenda — because you have some way to benefit or whatever — then it might be very difficult. For me, it is my nature.”

That’s the secret to her success.