MODESTO BEE
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

By MARJORIE BROOKS
Last Updated: December 3, 2006, 09:02:16 AM PST

Ordinarily, half the income the little shop generates is from sales of things like M&M's, Corn Nuts and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. But not in these weeks before Christmas. That's when the array of the shop's additional goods, things varying from porcelain collector dolls to candles, toy cars and jewelry are the big sellers.

Not many people know that the gift shop in the old county hospital building on Scenic Drive is still in business. It's run by volunteers, most of whom devote a shift every week to the effort. All the money their shop makes goes to purchasing equipment and supplies for the county's Health Services Agency clinics. That was $15,800 last year for scales, wheelchairs, stethoscopes, microscopes and lab equipment — anything the personnel in the clinics now occupying the facility have agreed is a priority item.

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