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Get ready to Drop, Dine and Donate

Bring expired medicine and unwanted clothing to The Medicine Shoppe for a free lunch this Saturday.
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Jodie Cunningham (left) and Shirelle Claxton (right) opened The Medicine Shoppe in February. They are hosting Saturday’s event. (Photo contributed)

Drop, Dine, Donate. If you’re behind on your spring clean-up and feel like a free lunch, you may want to check out this event on Saturday.

Organizers encourage you to purge old items and support some of the newest additions to the city.

The event is hosted by The Medicine Shoppe, Vernon’s newest pharmacy, in partnership with HOPE Outreach. Jodi Cunningham, B.SC. Pharm is the owner and pharmacist of The Medicine Shoppe. She organized and planned the event in an attempt to help raise awareness for both her new business and the work the HOPE is doing within the community.

HOPE, Helping Out People Exploited, is an organization that began in Kelowna in 2008 with the goal of helping marginalized and vulnerable women, who have very little resources in the Okanagan, get the support they need and the tools necessary for survival. It is 100 per cent donor-funded and recently expanded its reach to Vernon last October.

“There’s definitely some amazing charities in Vernon — lots who have great traction and good support so I wanted to find one that was newer and we could potentially have an impact with them,” said Cunningham. “HOPE outreach was a great fit and they support a really important population that, I think, sometimes doesn’t get the attention and compassion that they need and I wanted to bring awareness to that.”

The idea is for people to bring unused, unwanted or expired medication, which is potentially dangerous and harmful to the environment, to the pharmacy for safe disposal. Cunningham also encourages people to bring clothing donations (ideally women’s clothing), gift cards or monetary donations for HOPE.

“We looked at it like a spring clean-up,” said Cunningham. “Clean out your medicine cabinets and clean out your closet.”

In exchange, people will be given a voucher for a free lunch item at Happy Buddha Belly food truck, which will be on site. The Medicine Shoppe will also give a $5 donation to HOPE for every meal served.

Cunningham said she opened the pharmacy in the hopes to connect more with the community. She said she was inspired by traditional pharmacy-style and wanted to move away from the larger commercial retail pharmacies. The Medicine Shoppe also offers compounding — making speciality medications and customized solutions for customers. She wanted to be more hands-on and welcoming for any and all needs within Vernon’s population. She says her desire to connect with the public and have it be a positive, community-minded business is also the reason she was interested in partnering and driving awareness to HOPE.

“I wanted to find a charity that I am really passionate about and I find that there’s often a lot of judgement and not nearly enough visibility to the kinds of things that we can do to help,” said Cunningham. “A little more awareness and compassion makes it easier for people to see the sorts of challenges that these people face and not just see the difficulties they may pose to the rest of the community. Our goal is to positively impact people from all walks of life so it’s important to me that we’re opening up to everyone and show that we’re willing to support them, too.”

The event runs Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. outside The Medicine Shoppe on 31 St.

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@BrieChar
brieanna.charlebois@vernonmorningstar.com

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