Charles Warner|Daily Times Tavia Rigdon, director of Care Management at Wallace Thomson Hospital, and Donna Hooper, an employee of the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice, look at the scrubs on the racks in the hospital lobby during the Uniform Sale fundraiser Tuesday morning.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Heather Duncan, patient access representative, and Angie Whisonant, a patient account representative, speak while examining the shoes and other merchandise on display in lobby of Wallace Thomson Hospital during Tuesday's morning Uniform Sale fundraiser.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Andrea Cocovich, Chief Nursing Officer for Wallace Thomson Hospital, examines some of the merchandise on the tables in the hospital lobby Tuesday morning during the Uniform Sale fundraiser. The event, hosted by the hospital's adult volunteers, raises money to help buy needed medical equipment.

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UNION — The staff of Wallace Thomson Hospital and other customers had a wide selection of scrubs and other apparel to choose from during the semiannual Uniform Sale fundraiser hosted this week by the hospital’s adult volunteers.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the hospital’s lobby was lined with racks of scrubs, shelves full of shoes and a table filled with support socks, watches, stethoscopes, and flip-flops for sale by a Spartanburg firm. Catherine Childers, volunteer coordinator for the hospital, said the two-day sale was one of the events the hospital’s adult volunteers hold each year to raise funds to purchase needed health care equipment.

“We do it twice a year, usually in March and September,” Childers said Wednesday. “We bring in the guys from The Scrub Shop. They are local boys but their store is in Spartanburg.”

Childers said the volunteers share in the revenue generated by the sale and have used it in the past to buy equipment for the hospital.

“A percentage of what The Scrub Shop makes comes back to the volunteers,” Childers said. “We then in turn purchase equipment the hospital needs.

“In the past we’ve purchased blanket warmers; wheelchairs; Dinamaps, the machine they use to take your temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen level; and walkie-talkies for surgery,” she said. “We purchased the golf cart that’s used to take patients and visitors to and from their cars.”

Childers said the next step will be to meet with the Union Hospital District CEO and find out what the hospital needs. She said depending on the cost, the volunteers may wait until they raise additional funds later this year before purchasing it.

“We’ll talk with Tim Merritt about what the greatest need is,” Childers said. “Depending on what’s needed we may take the money from this sale and combine it with another that we host and then purchase what’s needed.”

Editor Charles Warner can be reached at 864-427-1234, ext. 14, or by email at cwarner@civitasmedia.com.