One of the recommended antidotes to anxiety during these trying times is to reach out to help someone, and there are countless examples of people and companies doing just that.  In the gift industry, several of our vendors have pivoted to use their manufacturing facilities for the production of much needed medical supplies. As Caroline Kennedy of PRESENT Magazine pointed out, when this crisis has passed it would be good for retailers to reward these vendors who are going the extra mile to help others.

P. Graham Dunn, in Dalton, Ohio, switched from making inspirational gifts and home decor products to assembling thousands of infection control shields for the doctors and nurses on the frontlines of the fight against the COVID-19 virus.  Anthony Burdette, P. Graham Dunn’s vice president of marketing and product development, was quoted in The Daily Record as saying “We care about our society and want to do our part to fight the coronavirus as best we can, and in addition to that it does allow us to fire up the factory and continue to work.”

Headbands of Hope announced that they would halt the production of their stylish fashion headbands, and instead they have manufactured 50,000 surgical masks for hospitals. In order to help finance this huge effort, they are donating one mask to a healthcare professional for every item purchased from their line. This North Carolina company was in fact founded on the concept of giving back, offering a free headband to a child with cancer for every item purchased.

In less than three days, the engineering team at Crazy Aaron’s switched their production over from making their popular Thinking Putty to producing hand sanitizer.  After converting their production facility and getting government approvals, they donated the first 100 gallons of product to local first responders. They are partnering with Norristown (Pennsylvania) neighbor Five Saints Distilling to secure the supplies they need to ramp up daily production in order to serve more organizations in need.

Woodchuck USA is a Minnesota company known for creating custom boxes and journals.  Benjamin VandenWymelenberg recently posted this on their Facebook page: “Two weeks ago, Woodchuck USA decided to shift its production to making the much needed face shields as PPE. Our team has worked 24/7 since making that decision to scale our operation up to 4 separate facilities, employing over 450 individuals. We are now making millions of these shields per week.  We have worked closely with 3M the past few days and have developed a second version of the face shield that will allow us to produce 3X the amount of shields we are producing currently. We will be moving from making a few million, to tens of millions of shields in the upcoming week/weeks. We will be able to get this life saving PPE into the hands of millions of more people due to the undeniable “Beast Mode” of our entire team.”

It is inspiring to see these small manufacturers stepping up to help, and when we’re again able to place wholesale orders for our store we promise to remember their efforts.

Happy Retailing, 

Carol “Orange” Schroeder