Medical Supply Drive is accepting donations April 7 to April 30 for unserved communities.
Band-Aids, Aspirin and children’s vitamins are just some of what is being collected for the Medical Supply Drive, which is accepting donations until April 30.
To kick off World Health Day on April 7, students and faculty from the wealth and poverty themed courses aim to combat inequality through their medical supply drive.
The drive will collect supplies for donation to people in Athens, as well as in Peru and Botswana.
According to Yeong-Hyun Kim, coordinator of the wealth and poverty theme for the College of Arts & Sciences, students from the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine will be going to Peru and Botswana to provide underserved people with health care.
“A simple over-the-counter (medicine) could help them get through their day and if that’s not available to people — I think it’s a great idea to try to make that available to people,” Linsey Groeneveld, a senior studying political science, said.
Kim said not many people are aware of the drive, but she hopes more people will spread the word.
“I didn’t know that we were doing this, but, I mean, it makes sense,” Groeneveld said. “It can be a basic necessity, like Aspirin, ibuprofen. ... People get headaches, people have pain.”
Angela Chapman, the vice president of communications for Graduate Student Senate, said in an email that her organization distributed seven boxes of various sizes to different buildings on campus that would otherwise have not been reached.
“Dr. Kim first asked me to help spread the word about the medical supply drive through the graduate students in the Geography Department,” the graduate student studying geology said in an email. “I told her I was happy to help and that I also had a number of contacts around campus through my involvement with Graduate Student Senate.”
Kim said there are many other drives that the wealth and poverty theme has held before, including a school supply drive for The Plains Elementary and a food drive for local food pantries in Athens.
She added that this medical supply drive was the first to ever be held at Ohio University and many people are uncertain of what items the drive is collecting.
“A lot of these things need the legwork, donating that’s one thing, but doing this legwork that’s another thing that I want my students to learn,” Kim said.
Kim added that people want to donate, but they just need a little push in order to do so.
“I mean it’s not even a prescription medicine, it’s a basic over the counter,” Groeneveld said. “If that’s something that we can provide simply, then we absolutely should.”
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