Since 2013, Walgreens has donated 1% of participating vitamin and supplement product retail sales to Vitamin Angels.
“Vitamin Angels and Walgreens have helped improve the health of a child or mom every second of every day,” said Ana Céspedes, Vitamin Angels CEO.
“This milestone underscores the extraordinary impact a long-standing, mission-aligned nonprofit-corporate partnership can achieve. Together, we are proving that meaningful, global change is not only possible—it’s happening.”
In the United States, Vitamin Angels partners with 210 organizations, including clinics that support the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Health Departments. Worldwide, it collaborates with a network of governments, international organizations, local program partners, community health centers and academic institutions.
The organization’s package of interventions focuses on the first 2,000 days of life, including pregnancy through the first five years.
For example, Vitamin Angels has become one of the largest global providers of vitamin A and deworming to underserved communities worldwide.
Increasing overall survival rates
It is estimated that 250,000 to 500,000 children suffer from vitamin A deficiency and become blind each year. According to Vitamin Angels, half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight. The World Health Organization recommends all children ages 6 to 59 months living in areas with moderate to severe vitamin A deficiency receive supplementation.
Vitamin Angels said that “providing children with vitamin A supplements and antiparasitics decreases the incidence and severity of many childhood infections such as diarrhea and measles and increases overall survival rates.”
As of last year, the Vitamin Angels U.S. program reached 500,000 underserved pregnant women. In 2024, Vitamin Angels and Walgreens also expanded their Prenatal Vitamin Program. The initiative offers free prenatal multivitamins and nutrition education to pregnant women in underserved communities across all 50 U.S. states in over 2,300 Walgreens locations. The program provides a direct-ship option in select markets, which Vitamin Angels said ensures greater access to essential nutrition for pregnant women in need.
Despite its success, Vitamin Angels also experienced challenges in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had profound effects on the communities it served. The organization told NutraIngredients in 2021 that the pandemic caused government health programs to be delayed or postponed and that food supply chains were disrupted. This made its services even more critical, it said.
Multiple partnerships
Part of Vitamin Angels’ mission is to create partnerships with corporations, including with companies like SmartyPants, Bayer and Goli Nutrition.
The Vitamin Shoppe has also teamed with Vitamin Angels, and over the last 18 years that partnership helped provide supplements to communities facing health challenges.
In a 2024 post on LinkedIn, David Lipke, the Vitamin Shoppe’s senior director of corporate communications, said essential vitamins provided in early childhood can affect a child’s life indefinitely.
“That’s such a meaningful mission to be a part of and I think healthier moms and kids means healthier communities,” Lipke said. “And that’s a mission that all of us at the Vitamin Shoppe work towards every day.”
