The Pharmacy of Grace Story
One in ten people in the Kansas City metro area are uninsured, and as many as 40% are underinsured, making simple maintenance medications, and even life-saving ones, financially out of reach. As a pharmacist, John Yost understood this reality firsthand. As a person of faith, he felt compelled to do something about it.
The Inspiration
The spark came during a church mission trip with a group from the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. John and Sara Yost traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to visit the Church for All People and it was there that John learned about the Charitable Pharmacy of Central Ohio, a nonprofit providing free medications to uninsured and underinsured patients. It stopped him in his tracks.
John and Sara returned to Columbus not once but several more times, doing the kind of deep research and due diligence that would eventually become the blueprint for Pharmacy of Grace. They studied the model, asked hard questions, and began imagining what it could look like in Kansas City. Eventually, Sara said simply: “I think we need to do this.” That was the moment everything shifted from vision to action.
Building the Foundation
John and Sara formed a board of directors and began laying the groundwork, and that’s when COVID hit, slowing early momentum. But they never stopped. They identified Wyandotte County as the right place to plant roots: the county with the highest percentage of residents living in poverty in the greater Kansas City metro, with 30–40% of neighbors near their future location uninsured. They also knew that location alone wasn’t enough. A critical piece of the model was a clinic partnership and finding that partner in Mercy & Truth Healthcare Ministry unlocked access to the Dispensary of Hope network, making deeply discounted donated medications possible.
On July 22, 2022, the doors of Pharmacy of Grace officially opened at 721 N. 31st Street in Kansas City, Kansas. The first day, they filled three prescriptions. The official ribbon-cutting took place a few weeks later in August, and the vision was officially a reality.
Growing to Meet the Need
What followed was growth that surprised even its founders. Word spread through clinics, hospitals, and community organizations. Without any advertising, Pharmacy of Grace experienced strong, steady growth. They purchased a state-of-the-art pharmacy robot to help keep up with demand.
In March 2023, Pharmacy of Grace began delivering medications to Mercy & Truth patients in Shawnee, Kansas — a service that quickly revealed just how deep the need was in Johnson County. The team watched the need grow and knew a delivery model wasn’t enough.
Pharmacy of Grace is opening its second full-service location in Shawnee, KS, summer of 2026. This brings the same high-tech, high-touch, pharmacist-driven model of care to Johnson County and opens its services to the entire community. What began as an inspiration on a mission trip in Ohio is now two pharmacies and tens of thousands of prescriptions filled for neighbors who had nowhere else to turn.
The Mission Continues
Pharmacy of Grace exists to break the cycle of poverty, homelessness, school absenteeism, and unemployment caused by unmanaged chronic conditions. We believe that access to medication is access to hope and that no neighbor should have to choose between filling a prescription and buying groceries.
Donations drive our mission and will allow us to continue to serve more patients. Join us.
