A total of 20,000 protective face masks were donated Tuesday to Audubon Area Community Services, UniFirst Corporation and Daviess County Fiscal Court partnering to each provide 10,000. The joint donation will help to provide masks to area schools and volunteers serving in local nonprofit agencies.
Robyn Mattingly, Social Support Services Director at Audubon Area, said their agency faced several challenges when the pandemic hit. Their services continued, but they had to quickly adjust and protect their workers’ health.”
“We had to suddenly stop and get the PPE, and that costs money,” Mattingly said. “We didn’t have money in our existing budgets to be able to purchase masks, gloves, sanitizer, so it’s been a scramble. This is going to be a huge help to our programs.”
Officials with UniFirst and Fiscal Court both said they were honored to be able to help support an organization that is dedicated to helping others.
“It was a perfect fit to us because we’ve been here in the community for over 22 years,” said Beth Johnson, Customer Service Manager at UniFirst Distribution Center. “We’re proud of that, and we want to continue to partner up with different area efforts that are going on.”
Jordan Rowe, Fiscal Court Communications Coordinator, said they wanted to support Audubon Area staff who were on the front lines dealing with the public.
“We want to do everything we can to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” he said. “We know that masking is an important prevention tool. We absolutely want to support our workers, our front-line staff, and not only our county employees but also beyond those that are dealing directly with the public.”
Brandon Harley, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Audubon Area, said they were grateful the donation came when it did.
“If you do any type of human service work, you have to be able to be around people,” he said. “Due to the COVID restrictions and the environment we’re currently working in, that’s become a more and more difficult situation for us to be able to deliver services. This is a very timely donation for us to receive because we continue to do outreach. People are in excessive amounts of need at this point time based on restrictions and potential layoffs and job loss. We have a lot of folks out in the community who could really use some help, and Audubon wants to be there to help them.”
