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Personalized expertise: Silverton Pill Box named Business of the Year

Amber Grant of Silverton Pill Box Pharmacy, the 2019 Business of the Year. Photo by Jim Kinghorn
Amber Grant of Silverton Pill Box Pharmacy, the 2019 Business of the Year. Photo by Jim Kinghorn

By Brenna Wiegand

Silverton Pill Box Pharmacy will be celebrated as Silverton’s 2019 Business of the Year Feb. 8 at the First Citizens Banquet.

“I cried,” Pill Box owner Amber Grant said. “We are thrilled beyond words.

“When you’ve been here as long as we have, these people have become my family. We grew up together; our families interacted over sports and other community stuff.”

Nominators say Grant’s interactions go far beyond love of neighbor.

“She’s called relatives when an elderly family member seemed confused about their medications to make sure he under-stood the instructions,” a nominator said.

“We’re not just filling prescriptions,” said Grant. “We should be helping people get their medicine and take it correctly; many people don’t.

“One of the good things about being in a small town is that you chat with people like neighbors,” she added. “They’ll say, ‘Grandma fell the other day’ and I know the grandma and I’ll check on her meds and maybe suggest she call the doctor.”

“She has spent hours arguing with insurance companies for the best outcomes for her patients,” a supporter said. “I’ve watched her staff run to another pharmacy in the rain when they were out of a needed medication.”

“Amber and her team are the epitome of community service,” a nominator said. “Name a local organization and they’ve supported it… Pill Box has donated thousands of dollars to our community.”

Contributions, in kind or monetary, include providing flu shots at the Senior Center and regular donations to Lions and Kiwanis club endeavors.

Pill Box is a closed corporation owned by the managers of each of its six stores. The vision began in the mid-1970s when pharmacist Don Bodine sought a way to provide customers with more personal care. He thought by being independent he could help in a way that no other pharmacy
was doing.

“He was a wonderful man,” Grant said. “Though Don has passed away, the first thing I did when I got the award was call his wife and tell her the vision still works.”

Grant got an internship at Silverton Pill Box while attending OSU. Two years later she was made manager. Today, she and husband Bud have one daughter and are expecting their first grandchild.

“Being independent leaves me more leeway to serve patients with a little more personal attention and get more individualized in things I do for the community,” Grant said. “We are not bound by somebody else’s rules; I can give people my personal phone number or they text or email me. I can spend a little more time and energy to create things that couldn’t happen if I had corporate rules to follow.

“My daughter has asked me why I didn’t go to a big chain or hospital where you can make more money,” Grant continued. “That would never work for me. People is what I was meant to do… I knew from Day 1 this was who I wanted to be.

“I have never felt like I wasn’t appreciated but… to be able to say to people ‘I hope I have done what you asked me to do and I hope I have been here for you and hope I’ve been the business I try to be,’ this is a formal acknowledgement that I did what I set out to do.”

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