Quietly, for years now, Sara Friedman and Carol Morgan, two women dedicated to volunteering, from two different faith traditions, work together to fill a big need at Roof Above.
For many folks at Temple Beth El, their daily mitzvah, or good deed, starts with a pill bottle. As one temple member shared, “I’m always fishing them out of the trash.” That pill bottle will be sanitized and filled with body wash and make its way from a synagogue to a church, to a neighbor at Roof Above. How did ache and pain remedies become acts of service? Sara, a lifelong volunteer for several causes, was paying attention.
On the neighborhood announcement app, Next Door, a member of the South Mecklenburg Presbyterian Church’s shelter ministry put out a call for pill bottles. Sara, who’s “very big on recycling,” heard the call, and thought of her own bag of pill bottles, ruing their future in the landfill, and her friends in Temple Beth El’s SPICE community, a 55-plus group. “And so,” she says, “I went to the board and asked if we could sponsor this event, and collect bottles from people, because our age group takes many bottles of medicine and they throw them out.”
Four years later, everyone at SPICE knows where to bring their pill bottles. That one Next Door post has led to Temple Beth El’s consistent bottle donations to the South Mecklenburg Presbyterian Church Shelter ministry, who fills them up with body wash, and donates them to Roof Above. Sara notes a particular uptick in donations when SPICE serves pastrami or corn beef, leading to a surge in attendance. Now, the temple has branched out, putting an ever-filling collection box at the entrance of the synagogue, so medication takers of all ages can participate. Sara collects two-to-three garbage bags worth of pill bottles a month and then delivers them to Carol.
Carol Morgan has seen her church, South Mecklenburg Presbyterian Church, bloom around her. As the numbers at the church grew, so did her army for good deeds— particularly the donation of necessities to those who don’t have them at shelters and schools. A friend at the church, Marsha Jackson, launched the pill bottle ministry almost two decades ago, and now, as Carol says, “It’s a community thing.” In 2017, Carol took over the volunteer position with passion and vigor. At her 80th birthday, she said, “Some ladies came to my birthday party and gave me 80 bottles of body wash.”
The second Thursday of every month, the community hall at South Mecklenburg Presbyterian Church could get confused with a pharmacy, save the children’s choir and crucifixes. Fifteen to twenty folks work away, surrounded by pill bottles. Many of the ministry participants have been volunteering for 10 years or more. All shared they were “competitive” about the numbers. “If we don’t get to 1,000 bottles a month it’s a bit disappointing,” one volunteer said. Two volunteers, Linda and Brett, drive the bottles to the Day Services Center, where anyone in need can sign up for a shower. These pill bottles are a small luxury for neighbors at the Day Services Center, as they are filled to the top and reusable, so people can hold on to soap for later to stay clean. From the bathroom counter, to a synagogue, to a church, to the hands of a neighbor, these pill bottles travel a long way and make a world of difference.