Hometown Pharmacy, United Way Tout Vitamin Program
BOARDMAN, Ohio -- Children need to be healthy to perform well in school, and Hometown Pharmacy and the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley sought Thursday to call attention to an initiative the local pharmacy launched in March 2011.
The library in Market Street Elementary School served as the backdrop for the press event to raise awareness of Hometown Pharmacy’s program, which offers free multivitamins to children ages 5-12 in 26 school districts.
“We call it sort of a relaunch here today,” remarked Bob Hannon, executive director of the United Way chapter. “It gives us an opportunity to get the word out again.”
“For us it’s a great way to give back to the community,” said Garry Mrozek, Hometown Pharmacy CEO. “We feel it’s vitally important for children to be in school; for children to be here they’ve got to be healthy. The vitamin program is an ingredient to all that.”
“This was really a natural for us to get involved” as part of the local United Way’s efforts to help kids get off to a good start in school, Hannon said. The United Way chapter in recent years has focused on getting young children off to a good start in school. The chapter’s Success by 6 program now has 18 schools participating and this past summer assisted more than 600 children, he reported.
“Our philosophy is you get them the vitamins, it hopefully helps them learn better, concentrate better, and it’s just a good habit for them that hopefully they’ll continue into their adult years,” Hannon said.
Children can get registered at any one of Hometown Pharmacy’s locations, regardless of whether their school is participating in the program. “If a school isn’t signed up, if [children] want to come to one of our stores and sign up for the program we would not turn them away,” Mrozek said.
“The partnership with Hometown has been great,” Hannon added. We want to get the word out. We want parents to know that they can go in and get the vitamins.”
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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