As the mall in Columbia reopens, Sheild Pals, a retail store offering personal protective equipment to consumer, opening from June 26. Due to the pandemic, it seems that products of protective equipment will be with us for a while.
Personal protective equipment is widely introduced due to covid-19 as healthcare providers needed and businesses provided these items with immediate effect such as mask, gown and face shield.
According to the co-founder Chris McCormick, coronavirus had initially forced the company close its doors and lay off its 25 full time workers in March. After three months the company involves manufacturing and selling PPE to universities and health care firms nationwide with 100 staffs. And now the company is ready to sell Maryland-made mask, gowns and face shield to general consumers.
“In that process we utilized our printing equipment to make different characters and different styles that people could put onto their face shields,” McCormick said.
The company has come up with innovative design of face shields with whimsical characters such as a fox, a frog and a robot so that it may bring some comfort and reduce anxiety for younger patients when nurses and doctors all dressed up in full protective equipment to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The company is getting huge responses after putting up a post on a weekend that the company was working on and setting up a store for the shields. Orders are coming from all 50 states.
Shield Pals in the mall is near Apple and Banana Republic, where wider public will see the product that were designed for healthcare and can purchase. The company will also offer PPE supplies from other local companies means it will be a place to shop for protective equipment and also pick up for online orders.
According to McCormick, this also allowed the company to increase its product line and for this the company was able to bring back it laid off employees to make PPE and now employing additional 60 more people.
