CLEVELAND, Ohio — In northeast Ohio, one in six people may not know where their next meal is coming from, according to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
What You Need To Know
- In northeast Ohio, one in six people are food insecure, according to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank
- Meds for Meals is a campaign where every Parafill prescription delivered means one meal is donated
- The goal is to donate at least 1,000 meals to people in need
A new pharmacy is teaming up with the food bank to help change that statistic.
Parafill in Beachwood kicked off the Meds for Meals program last week.
The concept is simple: for every prescription delivered, one meal is donated.
Parafill opened about six months ago and serves as a same-day delivery prescription service throughout the Greater Cleveland area.
“Particularly for a pharmacy, you know, we think of ourselves as a public health institution and public health is more than medicines, so good nutrition is part of that and we recognize a lot of people are limited in their access to that right now. So, that’s our way of just reaching out and helping,” said Chris Verdi, Parafill CEO/President of Pharmacy Operations.
Verdi said the company aims to provide a convenient, personalized, and safe experience for patients amid the pandemic.
“The inspiration came from me working as a major retail chain pharmacist for a period of time and just seeing the limitations. Us not being able to get to know patients as well and get to really take care of them the way that we should be able to,” Verdi said. “And so it’s sort of paradoxical that we’re distanced, we do everything delivery based, but we like to think we get to know our patients a little bit better because our pharmacy team isn’t distracted by, you know, pops and sodas and, you know, selling those kind of things. You know, we schedule things out in advance and we get to know our patients pretty well over the phone.”
The goal of Meds to Meals is donate at least 1,000 meals to people in need.
