YFP 364: Starting a Nonprofit: An Interview with Founder of Pharm to Tables, John Muchka, PharmD, BCPS

Dr. John Muchka, Founder of Pharm to Tables, talks about how he started the non-profit and its mission of helping end the hunger crisis in local communities.

This episode is brought to you by First Horizon. 

Episode Summary

In this episode, Tim talks with Dr. John Muchka, Founder of Pharm To Tables, a charitable organization uniting pharmacy professionals in a singular, focused mission of helping end the hunger crisis of our local communities

Dr. Muchka talks about how his service learning project during pharmacy school inspired the idea for Pharm To Tables, the why behind his passion to end hunger in local communities, how he was able to get his vision off the ground, and the lessons he has learned along the way.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. John Muchka received his Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin- Madison followed by his Doctor of Pharmacy from South University School of Pharmacy in 2010.

Dr. Muchka is a seasoned clinical pharmacist with over 13 years of extensive experience in the healthcare field. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to advancing pharmacy practice and improving patient care.

As a Pharmacy Residency Program Director, Dr. Muchka plays a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of pharmacy professionals. His dedication to mentorship and education has empowered countless pharmacists to excel in their careers and make meaningful contributions to the field.

In addition to his role as a clinical pharmacist and Residency Program Director, Dr. Muchka is also the Co-founder and president of Pharm to Tables Charitable Organization Inc. Under his visionary leadership, Pharm to Tables has emerged as a driving force in promoting overall community health by helping to end food insecurity.

Dr. John Muchka is a respected voice within the pharmacy community on a local and national level. He currently serves on the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin Board of Directors. Dr. Muchka also represents Wisconsin in the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists House of Delegates. Through his active involvement in these organizations, Dr. Muchka advocates for policies and initiatives that elevate the profession of pharmacy and enhance the quality of patient care on a local, national and global scale.

Outside of work, John loves spending time outdoors with his wife Lindsey and two sons, Luke and Noah

Key Points from the Episode

• Ending hunger in local communities with nonprofit Farm to Tables. [0:00]
• Career journey from construction to pharmacy, including residency and nonprofit work. [2:59]
• Starting a nonprofit to address food insecurity. [7:52]
• Starting a nonprofit to address food insecurity through the pharmacy profession. [12:26]
• Leveraging pharmacy connections for food donations. [17:11]
• Nonprofit organization supporting food pantries through pharmacy schools. [21:08]
• Addressing burnout in healthcare professionals through philanthropic efforts. [27:18]

Episode Highlights

“I said why do you guys come here after school when you could go to Forsyth and and play with some really good competition and the answer is what it was the reason why I started Pharm to Tables. They said, if we didn’t come here, we wouldn’t eat dinner. And when I heard that, I mean, you could have probably seen my heartbreak in front of these kids. And I knew that I had to do something.” – Dr. John Muchka [9:54]

“Because food insecurity is a problem everywhere, not only in urban areas, but also in rural areas, there’s food deserts everywhere. And if we can do something to generate food and or money to help give access to these people who need it, we’re going to improve community health.” – Dr. John Muchka [10:39]

“You know when you have you have an idea that just won’t go away? As you’re laying in bed and you can’t fall asleep? And that’s the one that’s the thought that comes back in your mind. So whether it was a calling or whatever it was, it was it was just something that wouldn’t go away. So it was time to take action on it.” – Dr. John Muchka [12:20]

“I know when you’re a kid, everyone says you know, it’s better to give than to receive. And that’s absolutely true. I mean, makes you feel good. It fills the tank, it gives you more purpose of what you’re doing here.” – Dr. John Muchka [23:09]

“Another thing that I learned was it’s not easy. Nothing’s easy, right? There’s going to be barriers along the way and it would have been easy just to hang it up and say yeah, I had this idea but nothing really came of it. But to have the vision and the foresight to say this could be something that could make a big difference in a lot of people’s lives. And just to keep going, I mean, no doesn’t mean no, it means not right now. And I live by that.” – Dr. John Muchka [24:50]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• Pharm to Tables
• Dr. John Muchka on LinkedIn
• Pharm to Tables on Facebook
• First Horizon Pharmacist Home Loan
• YFP Gives
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Planning: Fee-Only Financial Planning for Pharmacists
• YFP Disclaimer
• YFP on Instagram
• YFP Facebook Group

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich  00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I interviewed Dr. John Muchka, Founder of Pharm to Tables, a charitable organization uniting pharmacy professionals in a singular focus mission of helping end the hunger crisis of our local communities. We talked about his service learning project during pharmacy school and how that inspired the idea to Pharm to Tables, the why behind John’s passion to end hunger in local communities, how he was able to get his vision off the ground, and the lessons that he has learned along the way. Let’s hear a brief message from today’s sponsor First Horizon, and then we’ll jump into my interview with John Muchka. 

Tim Ulbrich  00:48

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Tim Ulbrich  02:16

John, welcome to the show. 

Dr. John Muchka  02:18

Thanks, Tim. Happy to be here.

Tim Ulbrich  02:20

Well, I’m excited to have you to share the work that you’re doing and the story of the Pharm to Tables non-profit organization. We’ll get to that here in a little bit. I had the opportunity to meet you actually after I posted something on LinkedIn several months ago that said, Hey, I’d love to hear more about pharmacists that are involved in different philanthropic efforts or running nonprofit organizations. Someone reached out to me say hey, you’ve got to talk to John and hear about the work that he’s doing with Pharm to Tables. So here we are. Before we get into that, though, give us your background and career journey in pharmacy, including what led you into the profession where you went to school and some of the work that you’ve been doing since.

Dr. John Muchka  02:58

Sure. Initially, pharmacy was not on my radar, I come from a blue collar family- construction workers. I have three older brothers that that all work in the construction industry. My parents own a construction company so that was that was the logical next step for me to go just start working right away after high school. But when I was in high school I worked in, in a pharmacy in a in a community pharmacy. A family friend had owned the pharmacy and I worked there and I I enjoyed the work. And when I talked to my parents about maybe next steps, about me going to college and what they thought about it, they were they were on board 100% so I went to University Wisconsin-Madison. I got my undergraduate degree in biochemistry. Still really didn’t know what I was going to do. But then I thought back on my my time as a pharmacy technician, and I was like, you know, let’s let’s give this pharmacy thing ago. Decided to go out of state. I was in Madison for about five years and I was looking to go somewhere else, see another part of the country. So I went to pharmacy school in Savannah, Georgia at South University. Thought I was still going to do the retail pharmacy route until I started doing my appy rotations. And there’s a lot of army bases out there. So a lot of the collaborative practice agreement models where pharmacists ran clinics and I worked in a lot of the hospital settings and I really enjoyed that. So I decided to pursue a PGY1 residency. I was lucky enough to match back home here in Milwaukee at Froedtert and Medical College of Wisconsin. That was in about 2011 I think. After I completed my residency, I wanted to take what I learned at the academic medical center and take that back to the community that I lived in. So I wanted to take the cutting edge pharmacy stuff that we were working on there and take it from here community hospital that might not have the resources or, or the knowledge base of the pharmacists that were working there to implement some of this cool stuff. So I took a job as the 770 D-central pharmacist in the town and a hospital in town I grew up in. My mom was actually a unit clerk at the hospital when I was growing up. So I went back to the hospital that she worked at. And I knew a lot of the people that were still there. And I was able to implement some cool stuff in that in that pharmacy department.

Tim Ulbrich  05:22

Love it. And I love to hear the career journey coming back to home. And many listeners know that I’ve got four boys. So when you shared with me that you have three brothers, I love the brothers story you shared with me when we talked a couple of months ago that one of your brothers said, Hey, I’m not gonna hire you. You need to go to school. Right? Yeah.

Dr. John Muchka  05:41

That was probably the best career decision. Fourth career decision that I had. So yeah, he was looking out for me and he said, Hey, man, we don’t have the brains that you have, you can do the work. The work is great. What we do right now, and if you ever need a job, if it doesn’t work out, you can come back and work for us. But we want you to give it a go doing something else. 

Tim Ulbrich  06:02

Just love that. It’s such a brotherly way of saying like, I love you, I need to encourage you in this direction, I’m not gonna hire you.

Dr. John Muchka  06:13

After I spent some time at the Community Hospital, where where I grew up, there was something missing there in it was not having students in residence. It was a small community hospital, and I was used to that resident learning environment. So I decided to go back to a different teaching hospital within Froedtert and Medical college, it’s in Menomonee Falls, which is a suburb of Milwaukee. So I’ve been there the last nine years. I’m a Clinical Pharmacist there, I’m also the residency program director, we’ve got three residents, that’s one of the highlights of my day to day is watching them and mentoring them. And those aha moments that they have along the way, when when they come in, and they’re so green in July, and then at this point in the year now, I mean, they’re looking for jobs, I’m trying to open up my network to them, and just the growth that you see in those, that short period is amazing. So that’s where I currently am and who knows where the future is gonna take me. Digging what I’m doing right now.

Tim Ulbrich  07:15

Well, let’s talk about the Pharm to Tables organization that you started, I will link to the website in the show notes Pharmtotables.org. Tell us about the purpose of that nonprofit organization that you started. Sure.

Dr. John Muchka  07:29

So the purpose is, I mean, food insecurity is a problem everywhere. And I’ll get into the backstory of it, probably in a little bit here. But you notice that social determinants of health are a big, they have a big impact on overall community health. And I wanted to do something to increase food accessibility to people and not only my community, but the surrounding communities. So we had the idea when when I was in pharmacy school at South University. Part of our curriculum was servant leadership and we had a list of things that we could do. And being naive when I moved out there having only known Madison for the last five years. I just picked a picked a place that was relatively close to my pharmacy school that I could ride my bike to. And I was looking for the most inexpensive apartments to live in. No surprise after I got there, I mean, it was in a lower socioeconomic neighborhood, which I was fine with. But I picked one of the locations it was called the Savannah Baptist Center. And what they did there was mentored kids in the community. It was an after school program. They had a food pantry there and they also had a clothes closet. Miss Alice White was the lady that ran that she ran a pretty tight ship. And she wouldn’t give you access to the after school mentorship program until you earned your keep so for the first few months, I worked in the food pantry in the clothes closet. I made my desires known that I wanted to be with the kids after school, I wanted to mentor them. Some of those kids didn’t have a positive male influence in their life. And I thought I could be that. So after a few months, she gave me permission to start hanging out with the kids after school. I started doing it I think we were we were mandated to go twice a month. I started going two times a week, three times a week because I really enjoyed the work that we did there. And one thing that we did was provided a meal for them before they went home. And I didn’t really think too much about that. Until I started talking to the kids. There were two brothers that I was very close with. They loved basketball and if anyone’s been to Savannah, there’s a big park called Forsyth Park in downtown that that always has games running from sunup to sundown some very competitive games and these two kids were really good at it and I said why do you guys come here after school when you could go to Forsyth and and play  with some really good competition and the answer is what it was the reason why I started Pharm to Tables, they said, if we didn’t come here, we wouldn’t eat dinner. And when I heard that, I mean, you could have probably seen my heartbreak in front of these kids. And I knew that I had to do something. I didn’t know what it was yet. But that night, I went home and I talked to my wife and I said, Lindsey, we need to do something that I told her the story. And she’s like, let’s, let’s do it. Not sure what we’re going to do yet. But, but let’s do it. So I had her support. And that was, that was the dawn of Pharm to Tables, I still didn’t really know what I was doing. But that was the origin of why, why to get it started. Because food insecurity is a problem everywhere, not only in urban areas, but also in rural areas, there’s food deserts everywhere. And if we can do something to generate food and or money to help give access to these people who need it, we’re going to improve community health.

Tim Ulbrich  10:55

And I love that that started with a project right as part of the curriculum that led to a service opportunity, which led to an awareness of a problem, but then ultimately, you decided to take action. And you know, it’s one idea, one thing to have an idea, it’s another thing to take action. And I think especially when you think about starting a nonprofit organization, you know, there are a lot of hoops to jump through, there can be a lot of doubts that come up, even people that are probably like, John, what, what are you doing? There’s lots of resources that already exist, like, why are you trying to solve this problem? Maybe you had some that maybe you didn’t, but moving past that idea to actually execute on that idea is two totally different things. And I think that step is so important, not knowing exactly where it will go. And we’ll talk about kind of the future direction and where things are at today. But tell us about that early decision to actually get started. And what some of those initial steps were that you took.

Dr. John Muchka  11:47

Absolutely, yeah, that’s the biggest step going from idea to actually getting, getting it something tangible to something. And it took it took a long while. So I had the idea, but I was still finishing pharmacy school, and then I was doing my residency. And there were there were a lot of times where I thought, you know, let’s just scrap this idea. It’s a lot of work, I don’t really know what I’m doing yet. I want to just get through my residency, I want to be a pharmacist, I want to help people in that way. But I think I shared this with you in our in our meeting before but you know, you have you have an idea that just won’t go away. As you’re laying in bed and you can’t fall asleep. And that’s the one that’s the thought that comes back in your mind. So whether it was a calling or whatever it was, it was it was just something that wouldn’t go away. So it was time to take action on it. And again, having not having a lot of experience in nonprofits. Thankfully, my wife when we lived in Savannah, she worked for the United Way. And she had some resources and some experience on how to how to start. So I talked to some of her colleagues there and I just started started the paperwork, I didn’t really again know exactly the direction was going to go. But I knew I wanted to do something revolving around food insecurity, and tie that into the pharmacy profession and how we can we can help out. So I formed a board and thankfully, my college roommate from Madison is an attorney. So he helped me out with some of the legal paperwork and filling out those 501C3 national paperwork documents, that’s no joke, and then the articles of incorporation and your bylaws and all the stuff that we had to create before we could do anything before we were acknowledged as a 501 C three that timeline probably took close to a year to get the board set to get all the all the documentation in order and filed. And then we got it we got our employee ID number and we were a 501C3. So at this point, I’m very jacked. I’m ready to take over the world here. problems, though, the first thing I did was go to pharmacy leaders and mentors that I had to pitch my idea to do my elevator speech to them. And I thought it was gonna be I thought it was going to be acceptance across the board, but it wasn’t. There were barriers there. And it was, as you mentioned earlier, like Hey, John, it’s a good idea. But what do I mean what are you doing? You can allocate resources to other nonprofits to help with this and I really had the vision of trying to tie it to the pharmacy professional not not only pharmacy but the healthcare profession. Yeah. So it was a little rocky in the beginning when you hear no from people that you thought you’re gonna hear yes from you had to pivot a little bit and just keep on going and finding the people that that do support the mission that you believe in and found some pharmacy leaders and mentors of mine that were all in and said Great idea. Let’s let’s go How can I help and once you hear how can I help? Then you can definitely start leveraging those relationships and they open their networks to you and talk to other like minded people. And then it started taking off but I didn’t really know where to start with with the food or fund raising abilities. So I started with the pharmacy schools in the state. And I wanted to get students involved in, in servant leadership and giving back to their communities. And once you start that early on, they carry that throughout their their profession, professional career. So I met with the deans of pharmacy, and they were on board. And we had our first what we call the Pharmacy Food Fight. And it’s a competition on who can raise the most food and money. And it was over a week. And I mean, the beginnings were a little meager, I think, I think the first checks that I distributed to the meal programs that we support was $500 each, which I thought was great, I thought when I was over the moon about it. And then the next year, it started to grow. And people were aware of Pharm to Tables, and we got some name recognition. And then we started getting the alumni of those pharmacy schools involved. And that’s when it really started to take off. We also contacted the state organization, so pharmacy society, Wisconsin was an early adopter. And they allowed me to come and give presentations on servant leadership at their annual and summer meetings and have food drives at the actual meetings. So people would come in, bring their non perishable food item, we had options for them to donate online for what we were doing. And that gave me the platform to talk to other pharmacy leaders across the state and get buy in from them. We also have a food drive in October during pharmacy week that spans the state of Wisconsin. All the health systems in the state were involved one way or another. And I think we had about 35 sites that had food drives on their sites, whether it was a community pharmacy, a hospital, pharmacy, the clinics. And we keep all the food that’s donated local to where it where it was donated from. So I help connect the pharmacies or health systems that are not in my immediate area or geographic region, I help connect them to other food pantries that are near them and help build those relationships. So hopefully it continues for years to come.

Tim Ulbrich  17:11

One of the things I was struck by John and what you just shared is, is how critical of a pivot point that mentor mentors plural, really asking the question how I can help, right, because I think one of the questions I like to ask people when they’re beaten up an idea is that we say tell me more. Tell me more, tell me more. And the purpose of that is I don’t know intuitively what they may or may not know, intuitively, but I can help them process by asking questions. And certainly, if there’s an opportunity to help, how can I help, right? And what I heard there was, wow, like now there’s opportunities for networking relationships, and a natural answer to that question is, well, you can help by, you know, making an introduction here or connecting with a health system or connecting with a state organization or connecting with a college. And I would presume that led to the expansion of the work that you’ve been doing, which now is not only in the state of Wisconsin, but you also have expanded outward as well,

Dr. John Muchka  18:05

Right. Yep, we’re in four states now, hopefully adding a fifth this year. And that’s been working with the state organizations. So Sarah Sorum, who is the President at PSW introduced me to Kate Gainer, the Iowa pharmacy, resident, and they loved the idea. So they started doing something in Iowa every year. And then Kate gave me another connection with Anthony Pudlow, who is now in Tennessee, he was an Iowa, they’ve adopted it in Tennessee as well. So I mean, just meeting, just having those connections in the state organizations has really allowed us to, to expand out of the state of Wisconsin and try to do good work, not only in the Midwest, but hopefully, the plan is to expand it further as years to come. 

Tim Ulbrich  18:55

For those that are listening, if you have a connection with a state association, executive, college of pharmacy that you think might be interested, reach out to John directly, we’ll provide some contact information in the show notes reach out to us, we’ll help make a connection there as well. John, help our listeners understand the model. If I if I understand it correctly, you are facilitating donations, food drives, other types of efforts that then tie into other efforts and organizations that are already established as boots on the ground to provide food in addressing some of the food insecurity is that is that correct? 

Dr. John Muchka  19:30

that’s absolutely correct. So I don’t know if the term umbrella organization is the right term but so we utilize the Pharm to Tables name and try to leverage that with the with the pharmacy profession. But we vet meal programs and food pantries, so we raise money and and non perishables and allocate them to food pantries in our area. But for the model outside of the state, they’re using the name recognition of Pharm to Tables and I help make connections with those local food pantries and meal  programs. But there’s usually a site champion that that will handle the actual day to day or week food drive that they have and be in connection with those meal programs. So we do have the availability to donate online. Most of those online donations go directly to the Wisconsin organization. So the outside out of state meal programs, they usually have a site champion that they’ll donate actual money to. And then they allocate that money to the meal program. So it doesn’t go through the Pharm to Tables website for out of state solicitations based on different solicitation laws for others.

Tim Ulbrich  20:44

One of those lessons that your attorney roommate helped you navigate, right?

Dr. John Muchka  20:49

That’s exactly right. I didn’t realize how, how different some of those solicitation laws are from state to state. So to keep everything clean, if it is in another state, we usually allocate a state champion to raise the money and then that money will go directly to whatever meal program or food pantry they desire.

Tim Ulbrich  21:08

What I really liked about the model, what you’ve built, John, is it layers on you use the term umbrella organization whether or not you know that that’s necessarily a correct term, I’m following what you mean by that which it layers on the existing infrastructure, and organizations that already exist in alignment with the purpose that you have, but elevates the awareness of the need to other individuals that perhaps you’re looking for an opportunity to give that may not necessarily already be plugged in with that organization, rather than replicating the work of other organizations. It’s really helping elevate and support the work that’s already been done, which is great. I think that’s, that’s an awesome model for folks to think about. So if I’m following John correctly, essentially, there’s, when it comes to how your organization supports efforts, there’s monetary donations that folks can make directly, as well as donations of goods. And that often happens through some of the drives and other things that you’re doing. Is that correct? 

Dr. John Muchka  22:01

That is absolutely correct. Yep. So I know, in the state here we have we have fundraising events. In Wisconsin, we have two major fundraising events that we raised the bulk of the monetary donations through. But most of the offset or the out of state, run things are mostly food donations. There is the monetary donations that that again, go to that site champion, but we want to make sure that all the donations stay local for more they can. It’s 100%, volunteer organization, so any of the money that comes in is going to go back out. It’s a it’s a passion project and not making any profit. Sure. But it’s something that fills my tank and and keeps me going and when once see the impact, or when you give that check to the food pantry, or you drop off a trailer full of food to a food pantry, just just seeing the results of that. And when they say this is going to make such a difference, and they actually mean it. That’s what keeps me going and wants you to do more. I mean, I know when you’re a kid, everyone says you know, it’s better to give than to receive. And that’s absolutely true. I mean, makes you feel good. It fills the tank, it gives you more purpose of what you’re doing here. So it’s something that it’s been a lot of work to get going. But it’s been worth every hour that I put into it, just seeing the impact that has had on my community and seeing it grow and people buying in on the regional has been amazing.

Tim Ulbrich  23:37

Well, we’ve got 140 plus colleges of pharmacy now out there. So no excuse we should have all 140 plus colleges that are involved, I’d love to see a national right kind of food food competition supporting what you’re doing with Pharm to Tables. As you look back on getting the nonprofit off the ground and all of the work that you did to go from idea to executing on that idea to obviously the growth and to getting the buy in and to now actually raising raising funds and having the impact that you’re having. Are there one or two things that stand out to you as lessons learned along the way, you know, as you as you implemented the work and the efforts that you’re doing at Pharm to Tables,

Dr. John Muchka  24:16

I think I think the biggest is people are innately good and want to help. We just need to find the ones that are like minded and want to do it. A lot of people want to give but like you had mentioned before, maybe they don’t know what platform they want to do that on, but giving them an opportunity to give and get that get that feeling that that you get when you give. That was the probably the biggest lesson is people want to help. They just want they need to find a reason or how to do it a way to do it. Another thing that I learned was it’s not easy. Nothing’s easy, right? I mean, there’s going to be barriers along the way and it would have been easy just to hang it up and say yeah, I had this idea but nothing really came of it. But to have the vision and the foresight to say this could be something that could make a big difference in a lot of people’s lives. And just to keep going, I mean, no doesn’t mean No, it means not right now. And I live by that. I mean, a lot of people say no, and I take that as Okay, that’s a no, no, but not stop doing.

Tim Ulbrich  25:24

Yeah. Love the resilience of that. I think it’s it’s certainly good advice, as you think out into the future, John, let’s say 5, 10 years, and you know, that next evolution that next phase of the Pharm to Tables, what what does success look like? What does growth look like for the organization?

Dr. John Muchka  25:43

I think that success and growth are going to be hand in hand here. And our goal as the board is to add an additional state every year. Whether it’s one school of pharmacy, or one health system that wants to do something. So leveraging all of our combined networks to find the people that want to give and want to help and are in the position, maybe to pitch it to their board or pitch it to their school of pharmacy. That’s the plan. It’s, it’s, it’s growing a little faster than I had anticipated, which is there’s some logistical things that that we need to to button up. But I mean, it’s great just seeing how this thing is taken off. So just giving people that opportunity in that platform to make a difference and to give in, as pharmacists, I mean, that’s why we signed up for this thing to help people. And that can look a lot of different ways. It can be at the bedside, it could be in the community when you’re consulting or giving medical advice to someone. But this is just another avenue for us to to help our communities to improve community health. And I think that’s success right there. I mean, any little bit we can do to maybe make it a little easier on somebody in our community where then they might be able to afford their prescription instead of making a decision between feeding their families or, or buying their their chronic medication. I mean, that could make a world of difference, not only for their families, but for their individual health.

Tim Ulbrich  27:17

Yeah, and I think one thing that struck me, John, is you’re just talking, as you know, we know that there’s a lot of burnout that’s happening in among healthcare professionals among pharmacists. And, you know, I think, going back to some of the roots of hey, why don’t we get started in the profession of pharmacy. And I think being involved in philanthropic efforts being involved in giving activities, whether that’s monetarily, whether that’s your time, whether that’s both, I think that can be an important antidote to some of the burnout and other things that folks may be experiencing. And again, going back to the days when we were all in pharmacy school, even if that was 15, 20 years ago of hey, what why was I so excited and passionate about this project, this effort? You know, this initiative? John, as we wrap up here, what is the best way that our listeners can learn more about the work that you’re doing, to stay up to date with the work that you’re doing, potentially get involved, whether that be financially or make a connection, what what would be the best way for our listeners to do that?

Dr. John Muchka  28:11

The best way would probably be to visit our website to see what we’re doing. Or you can contact me directly and Tim, I can give you my contact information for people to contact but talk to your, your fellow pharmacists, talk to your families, talk to your community and see, hey, is this something that we want to do. It’s not a ton of work to put on a food drive or or do a fundraising activity to help your communities and I can definitely help guide them through those steps on how to do it. Because it was trial and error for me when I first started and I definitely learned some key things along the way on what makes them maybe more successful and gets buy in from from the people that they’re looking for. So start with the website, contact me individually, I would love to have a conversation about ways that we can help our community and hopefully help end food insecurity in the community that I’m in and the community that all the listeners are in.

Tim Ulbrich  29:09

So again, we’ll link to the website pharmtotables.org in the shownotes will also link to John, share your contact information. Thanks for giving that information out. I love what you have built love what you’re working on. When you shared with me a couple months ago, how you got started, the story behind getting started, how you took that step from idea to ultimately getting off the ground and now to see the growth  of that, have a lot of respect and admiration for what you’re doing there. So thank you so much for coming on the show to take time to share your journey. 

Dr. John Muchka  29:37

It was a pleasure. Anytime, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich  29:39

Thank you. 

Tim Ulbrich  29:42

Before we wrap up today’s show, I want to again thank this week’s sponsor of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, First Horizon. We’re glad to have found a solution for pharmacists that are unable to save 20% for a down payment on a home. A lot of pharmacists in the YFP community have taken advantage of First Horizon’s Pharmacists Home Loan, which requires a 3% downpayment for a single family home or townhome for first time homebuyers and has no PMI on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. To learn more about the requirements for First Horizon’s Pharmacist Home Loan, and to get started with the pre-approval process, you can visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan. 

Tim Ulbrich  30:25

DISCLAIMER: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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