Profiling Tepehua – October 2024

Tepehua Community Center provides numerous quality services to the people in the barrio of Tepehua: financial assistance for education, reduced medical, dental, pharmaceutical, and drinking water services, diabetes and maternal health programs, food assistance, business management and skills training in our sewing program, and more.

Moonie King’s visions and efforts in creating “a village helping its people” came to fruition under her leadership, and current staff and volunteers are working hard to maintain what has been created.

But Tepehua also provides an amazing service to the entire Lakeside community that I imagine very few people are aware of- a MEDICATION RE DISTRIBUTION AND DISPOSAL PROGRAM that allows people to drop off ANY AND ALL unused medications at our Tepehua Treasures Thrift Shop in Riberas. This service accomplishes the goals of being able to add unused medication within the expiration period to our pharmacy shelves, and also to properly dispose of all outdated meds in order to get them out of our garbage system, off the streets and out of our local water system.

We accept all pills, powders and liquids at the thrift shop. We have recently taken on a volunteer to receive and handle these donations. He sorts them by what is still usable in our pharmacy which then creates a huge advantage in keeping consumer costs low.

Next, he deals with the disposal of the non-usable meds which will eventually be sent to a “pharmacy recycling center” in Guadalajara. They charge approximately 500 pesos for every 5 kilos of meds, so in order to maximize this cost, the clinic staff and volunteer share in the task of removing all packaging and vacu-pacs and disposing of all this separately before sending the meds off to the Guadalajara facility. Powders also are packaged together in a separate bag, as are the liquid meds.

This is a win-win service. You can confidently donate your unused meds, and we will “recycle” them free of charge to our patients (of course always distributed within the acceptable parameters of over-the counter and prescribed meds) and at the same time protect our fragile environment.

So, we ask you to please NOT flush unused meds down the toilet and keep them out of your garbage can. Instead, bring them all bagged together to Tepehua Treasures Thrift Shop, located at #98 Hidalgo Avenue in Riberas, next door to Computerland. We are open Monday through Saturday, 12-3.

Our friendly volunteers will accept your medication donations and get them to the right place. Additionally, we welcome the donations of medical equipment and supplies you no longer are in need of – walkers, canes, Ace bandages, blood pressure machines and the like.

As always, we are forever grateful to our faithful customers for their generous donations and purchases in the shop which keep our programs running! A little side note to all of this. Prior to finding a volunteer to manage the medication donations at the shop, all meds we received were sent “up the hill” to the community center, where the Friday medical staff would sit around a large worktable sorting them by date and then spending hours popping individual “expired” pills out of their vacu-pacs. Their fingers were not only very sore, but all of this was taking time from attending to patients and other important daily tasks. With our new volunteer, things are running more efficiently for both Tepehua staff and the local patients they serve.

Way to go, Tepehua!

Way to go, community!