New kid on the block.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie
• Position: From the Editor

Welcome to Alaska Walgreens!

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Walgreens, a Fortune 50 company, opened its first store in Wasilla in July and two additional stores in Anchorage in August, and has plans to open a third Anchorage store and extend to larger cities across the state in the future. Present now in all 50 states, Alaska was the last to join its ranks of more than 6,900 drugstores nationwide and in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each store, which varies in size from 13,800 to 14,800 square feet, is a $3 million to $5 million investment in the community it resides.

The drugstore chain, in which the pharmacy is two-thirds of the business, recently celebrated its 108th birthday and provides for 30 to 40 mainly full-time employees at each Alaska location with benefits and higher-than-minimum-wage jobs.

"We really emphasize full-time," said Michael Polzin, director of corporate communications for Walgreens. "Two-thirds of the jobs are full-time." The majority of those are local hire.

The store donated $5,000 to Wasilla charitable organizations at its grand opening and additional monies to the Anchorage community. It has a close relationship with three major nonprofits on a local, state and national level: The American Heart Association, The American Cancer Society and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

"We do fundraisers for these three charities each year," he said. Total charitable contributions of cash and in-kind donations total about $45 million a year, he added. Polzin says its main focus is to support health and services sectors of the community.

One such donation is preventive treatment through the AARP Walgreens Wellness Tour that consists of nine customized buses that travel across the country each April through December (next year perhaps in Alaska) to do wellness screenings at no charge, a $140-per-person value. "It's a huge project," Polzin said...