Chuck Fidroeff runs the Good Samaritan mission in the Jackson. He came with me to a spot a few miles outside of town that, for a few days recently, was one of Jackson’s major attractions: the dump.
"It really hurts your heart," Fidroeff said while watching the crushing machines work. "Walgreens should have known better."
It was here where, on June 4, the entire inventory of Jackson’s only Walgreens was unloaded and put on a semi bound for a landfill in Idaho. The store had closed in April 2014, but its products had been left on the shelves untouched. Walgreen’s decision to throw those products away instead of donating them to local charity organizations like Good Samaritan left many townspeople furious.
"To see all those piles and piles of good stuff being thrown away," Fidroeff said. "It makes you want to cry because there are so many people in our city that could use that good stuff."
Jackson’s Public Works Director Larry Pardee can see the old Walgreens building from his office. He says, despite its ritzy reputation, Jackson can use all the donations it can get: Households in Jackson’s growing immigrant population only make an average of $26,000 a year. When he found out what was happening, Pardee said he started ringing Walgreen’s head office. But he didn’t hear back.
The story was picked up regionally, and as far away as Chicago. But Walgreens spokesperson Phil Caruso says, even with the negative press, the company made the right decision to protect its reputation.
"We really couldn’t be certain about the quality and safety of products that had remained in the store for such a long period of time."
There is a federal law called the Good Samaritan Act that protects donors of food from legal liability as long as they acted in good faith. But Caruso says it still wasn’t worth it.
"In this case, we just decided not to take the risk. Out of an abundance of caution."
The fate of the Walgreens building in Jackson is still unsure.
