https://www.unitedway.org/nourishing-community https://www.unitedway.org/resilient-communities
×

Sign me up for updates. Sign up now

×
Donate Take Action
In The News

United Way and Hometown Pharmacy provide free vitamins for elementary age kids

Source: WFMJ.com

March 19, 2018

By AJ Harris

STRUTHERS, Ohio - The United Way of Youngstown and Mahoning Valley and Hometown Pharmacy are reaching out to Struthers Elementary school students to let them know about their healthy kid's program. 

The program provides free monthly supplies of multivitamins to kids ages 5-12.

The multivitamin provided can help replace a few of the essential nutrients kids may be missing.

Hometown Pharmacy Vice President of Pharmacy Operations, Ron McDermott, explains that the multivitamin takes care of the B vitamins, the C vitamins. He says it can help fill in the gaps when meals are cut short or missed.

"The multivitamin is really one that can help round off some of the misses that we have in nutrition with our busy lifestyles these days," says McDermott.

By filling these nutrition needs, they hope to help kids receive a better education by keeping them from having to miss school for sick days.

"[Kids] always have the sniffles," Bethany Carlson, the lead administrator of the elementary school explains, "They always have a cough, they always have some kind of a cold...Vitamins boost their immune system, so if that's the one little thing that can help them be here in school more often, then that means that their academics can flourish".

The United way partnered with Hometown Pharmacy years ago. The healthy kid's program has been going strong for seven years, providing of 10,000 doses of vitamins annually.

It's not just the little ones who are eligible for free vitamins, there is also a healthy seniors program.

You can sign up for these programs by visiting any of the Hometown Pharmacy locations and can find more information here.