New Wellness Vending Machines Provide Students with Affordable and Convenient Health Items Wednesday, October 2, 2024
The words “vending machine” usually bring to mind images of Doritos, M&M's and Coke. On Point Park University’s campus, two new Wellness-on-the-Go vending machines are stocked with different types of goods — the kind you normally find at a drug store.
The vending machines are stocked with free sexual health items such as pregnancy tests and contraceptives, as well as low-cost generic over-the-counter medications. Students can expect to find cold medicine, pain relief, antacids, anti-diarrheal medicine, first aid kits, safe-sex kits and more. One machine is located on the first floor of the Student Center. A second will be added later this semester outside the Pioneer Pantry Corner Market on the first floor of Thayer Hall.
Director of Health Services Rebecca Harper said she’d been considering the idea for well over a year. A recent grant from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation has made it possible.
“We had a lot of students who came sick in the middle of the winter, and we didn’t want them to have to walk far to get the medicine they needed,” Harper said. She researched creating a small store in the health center but realized that the limited hours wouldn’t meet the students’ needs.
Out of the blue, she received an email inviting local colleges and universities to apply for the vending machine grant, and everything came together. Now, students will be able to access basic needs at a low cost any time of day or night.
“This is not a ploy for us to make money,” Harper said. “I just want students to have access to it.” In many instances, the price will simply be a rounded-up whole number of the wholesale cost or just enough markup to cover the expenses of running the vending machines, such as credit card fees.
“Any profit we do make stays in this budget, so it’s still going to fund student health activities,” Harper said.
Though students are the primary audience, the vending machines are available to any member of the University community, including staff and faculty who may find themselves in need of headache relief or cold medicine. Wellness-on-the-Go will accept credit cards and cash.
The machines are funded through a grant from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation’s College and University Health Vending grant program. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation is a fiscal agent for federal Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds provided through the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services in order to reduce maternal mortality, morbidity and to support families in Pennsylvania.