Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection donates part of April 20 sales to homeless shelter.

There’s a new marijuana dispensary in Corvallis, and it’s here to do some serious business. Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection is donating a portion of their April 20, more commonly known as 4/20, proceeds to Corvallis Outreach, Inc.

Owner Christine Jancila is a former social worker who moved to Oregon from Arizona. Jancila has a passion for helping homeless people and hopes to use her shop as a tool to fight against the issues of homelessness.

One of Jancila’s dreams was realized when she opened her shop two weeks ago. In Arizona, the former social worker made efforts to legalize marijuana. The process was too slow moving, so she sold her house, collected her retirement, hopped on the Oregon Trail and headed to the more progressive Pacific Northwest.

Aside from selling her product, Jancila has two goals for her shop; work within her customer’s budget and give back to the community. Just two weeks into operation, the shop is already tackling those goals.

“I embrace community,” said Jancila. “I embrace the diversity in the community. And I want to give back to the community.”

For April 20, the shop sold a selected pre-rolled joint for $4.20, half of those sales will be donated straight to Corvallis Outreach, Inc., a program which supports homeless shelters in the area. One hundred fifty-eight of these joints were rolled, and the shop expects to sell out.

“I hope to bring some attention to the homelessness that’s here in Oregon and hopefully they can find some solutions and I will offer solutions to the problem of homelessness,” said Jancila.

The shelter will treat Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection as an anonymous donation due to the existing stigma attached to the marijuana industry. Though Jancila won’t get any advertising out of her good deed, she is still excited to help a community in need.

“I work with people who struggle on the margins of society,” said Jancila. “I know how they feel, I can empathize with their struggle. It’s better to embrace community and help them. It’s not all about business, it’s about giving back.”

Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection employee, Allen Emmot, has previously worked at other dispensaries in town. There, he said they would discuss giving back but just never got around to it. Emmot appreciates that his new boss is so willing to engage with the community.

According to Emmot, the atmosphere at Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection is unlike other places.

“A lot of other stores kind of pop up and they look nice and branded and have that boutique thing going on, which is really great if that’s how you want to do it,” said Emmot. “(Marie Jane’s Cannabis Connection) is really real, and I think people really respect that. Our owner is in here chatting with people all day, every day. It’s just kind of a different environment.”

Customer, Mark Beasley uses marijuana both recreationally and medically. He moved to Oregon about a year ago from Nevada, a state that just legalized recreational marijuana use. Beasley has an issue regarding marijuana’s stigma.

“We’re almost like the pitbull of recreation,” said Beasley. “It’s like, ‘don’t smoke weed because it’s not legal.’ Well it should be legal. You don’t have to do anything to it, just pull it off the branch.”

Beasley said he could never imagine marijuana’s black market giving back to the community like Jancila’s shop has.

“The more examples of it being productive, versus people going and buying it in the streets, they might jump on board and say, ‘Hey, let’s legalize it so it’s less of a distraction,’” said Beasley.

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