There are many reasons why a community member may come to us for assistance with receiving medications. They’ve just moved to the area and are looking for work, are a caretaker of a family member and aren’t bringing in enough income, are out of work because of Hurricane Helene, or maybe recently lost housing and living in their vehicle. These are all real situations that our clients are facing.
This last year we’ve seen an increase in the use of our pharmacy services compared to the previous year. In 2024, we distributed $3,256,961 worth of prescription medications to our community —19,687 prescriptions in total were filled. Most of these prescriptions were distributed for the treatment of diabetes, cholesterol, and blood pressure.
Our Food is Medicine program works together with our pharmacy to support folks on their health journey by providing healthy, nourishing foods and therapeutic medications everyone deserves. Both our pharmacy and food market provide free access to our community, with experts on staff to provide individualized support in disease-management and prevention, allergies, and overall wellness. Did you know our FIM boxes meet the standards for the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association?
Did you know our FIM boxes meet the standards for the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association? Together, our FIM and Pharmacy programs work each and every day to transform our community's hunger into health.
In 2024, we assisted a total of 912 clients, of which 366 were new. This is an increase from 2023, in which we had 773 total clients, 246 of them being new, and having dispensed 18,417 prescriptions.
Of those we saw in 2024, the majority were between the ages of 45-64 years old. Additionally, 18% were Hispanic or Latino. Our pharmacy is fortunate to have a bilingual pharmacy technician to serve our community and assist those whose primary language is Spanish.
Our pharmacy provides free medications to those uninsured or under-insured.
“Someone who has insurance may come here for meds because they are unable to afford their co-pay at a retail pharmacy,” said Prescription Assistance Coordinator Makayla Caudill.
Of the prescriptions we dispense, medications such as Gabapentin, Eliquis, Metformin, Albuterol, Ozempic, and Humalog are ones we see come across our counter quite often. Generally, our clients wouldn’t be able to regularly afford these medications to be healthy humans. For example, Ozempic — which is prescribed for those with type 2 diabetes — costs $926.92-$1,070.47 depending on the supply prescribed. Eliquis, prescribed to prevent and treat blood clots, costs $533-$1,599 depending on the supply dispensed.
Together, our health services programs work each and every day to transform our community's hunger into health.
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