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Boone Drug Helping to Supply the Community with Much-Needed Hand Sanitizer

By Nathan Ham

It’s nearly impossible to find hand sanitizer on store shelves these days. Boone Drug has taken it upon themselves to start making their own hand sanitizer and giving it to people who need it the most.

“Over the past few weeks, we have been compounding hand sanitizer since we were able to get our hands on the necessary ingredients,” said Boone Drug Marketing Coordinator Jessica Welch. “We’ve been making it and giving it out to our customers, whether you are coming in picking up something in the store, or want to use our curbside service, just pull into the designated curbside spot and call the number on the sign and we will bring your order out to you.”

Boone Drug has not stopped there with just customers at their stores.

“On Friday, we delivered over 15 gallons to our local essential workers and businesses. We delivered to the hospital, Boone Fire Department, Watauga Medics, Watauga Rescue, and the sheriff’s department,” said Welch. “We have made over 75 gallons so far and we are continuing to give this out and give back to the community in a small way and try to do a little something to help.”

The ingredients for manufacturing hand sanitizer are hard to come by, and thankfully for Boone Drug, they were able to locate some alcohol from a supplier to mix with other ingredients they already had to be able to make it.

Welch said that the hospital had already reached out to them hoping to find some sources for hand sanitizer and then the sheriff’s office called last week and said they were completely out.

“We told everybody if you run out just to let us know. We’re going to keep making it as long as we have the ingredients,” Welch says.

Local business Go Postal stepped up to help out by providing all of the labels for the hand sanitizer.

As a reminder, Boone Drug is still offering free delivery to any customer in Watauga County. They will deliver prescriptions and anything from inside the store you might need, including their now-famous homemade hand sanitizer.

In the photos: Corey Furman (Boone Drug President/CEO), Nikki Trivette (Pharmacy Technician) and Spencer Hodges (Corporate Pharmacy Manager) along with a member of each department that Boone Drug delivered hand sanitizer to.