Italy: When pill is a gift

The association Banco Farmaceutico, born from a partnership between the Associazione Lombarda titolari di farmacia and the Federazione Impresa Sociale – Compagnia delle Opere, has been organizing for six years the National Day to collect pills in order to help poor people?s pharmaceutical need through cooperation with local entities.

This year the event, that has taken place on February 11, has involved 2150 pharmacies, 71 provinces, more than 800 Municipalities and about 8 thousand volunteers. Each pharmacy will be in charge of delivering collected pills to local welfare institutions.

In five years 500 thousand pills have been collected for an amount of about 3 million euros. As for the institutions involved, the number is continuously increasing: at present they are 700 in the whole of Italy and they help 240 thousand poor people.

www.bancofarmaceutico.org