A team from the Ohio Northern University chapter of the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA) has been selected as one of five regional winners of the 2015-16 “Prescription for Service” competition. The ONU division of SNPhA will receive a $2,500 grant award that will enable it to implement a service program in the community.

Each of the five winning teams will create a poster to be displayed at the 2016 SNPhA/NPhA National Convention in July, where they will present their project to a panel of Walmart/Sam’s Club and NPhA judges. One team will be selected as the national winner and receive a $10,000 team scholarship to be divided equally among the primary team members to help them with the remainder of their Doctor of Pharmacy degree studies.

Dr. Tarek Mahfouz, associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and faculty adviser to the ONU SNPhA team, said, “I am very proud of this group. Not only are they a very talented group of proactive leaders, they have blended together so well in the development of this project. I am excited to see the impact they make upon our community. I know they will do well both here and at the national convention.”

The purpose of SNPhA’s “Prescription for Service” competition is to encourage students to find innovative ways to promote quality, affordable and accessible health care for members of their immediate communities. This national grant competition is meant to teach students to make an impact in underserved communities. With this in mind, the ONU SNPhA team made the decision to open a new outreach location at Table One, an upcoming nonprofit restaurant located in Kenton, Ohio. They want to use various health care initiatives to provide point-of-care testing as well as therapeutic counseling for the patients they interact with during their project’s timeline. The ultimate goal of the group is to increase education for low-income Hardin County inhabitants and create a sustainable space for ONU and other local health educators to reach the community.

According to the National SNPhA representatives, choosing the regional winners was not an easy task for the panel of judges, but the decision was made to select ONU team’s submission as the winner based on their project proposal, which exemplified SNPhA G.O.A.L.S. (Globalization. Outreach. Advocacy. Leadership. Scholarship.), which is the theme of the organization during the 2015-16 academic year.

The ONU SNPhA team consists of Hannah English, SNPhA president and a fifth-year pharmacy student from Goshen, Ky.; Ruth Aminu, national projects chair and a fourth-year pharmacy student from Beachwood, Ohio; Wisdom Adaka, treasurer and a fifth-year pharmacy student from Hawthorne, Calif.; and Colin Lombardi, president-elect and a third-year pharmacy student from Milan, Ohio.