Local Company Making 25,000 Cloth Masks For Windsor’s Hospitals

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A Windsor textile company has designed, manufactured and donated a number of face masks to local hospitals.

Windsor Textiles Limited, parent company of Wintex Safety and Universal Health Products, has partnered up with Transition to Betterness to donate 25,000 reusable face masks to Windsor Regional Hospital and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.

Owner Fo Abiad says the company started developing a plan to produce masks for the local community when news of the pandemic hit.

“We began reviewing styles for cloth made masks in our production facility here in Windsor,” Abiad said. “We started making a couple of hundred masks a day and donating them to front-line workers.”

Abiad says the company has donated over 3,000 locally-made cloth masks as of Monday and they’re now producing 500 masks a day.

“We have provided these to numerous places,” Abiad said, “mostly health care facilities but also to local business with front line workers.”

Abiad says Wintex Safety and Universal Health Products also donated over 3,500 N95 masks that they had in stock.

“I feel strongly about the need to support each other and our front-line healthcare workers during these challenging times,” Abiad said.

Windsor Regional Hospital Director of Public Affairs Gisèle Séguin says they are grateful for Abiad’s donation. “Thanks to the donation,” she said, “Windsor Regional Hospital is able to distribute masks to all staff for personal use.”

Séguin says the masks are not intended to replace Personal Protective Equipment when caring for COVID 19 patients but “will help equip our staff with and do our part in preventing community spread.”

Bill Marra, Executive Director of the Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare Foundation says the hospital is extremely grateful for the donation. “The safety and security of our Windsor-Essex community, our patients, and staff here at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is our top priority,” he said. “Windsor-Essex has always been a philanthropic community, and this pandemic has been no exception.”

Transition to Betterness, the group that organized the donation, says the masks will help with the strain in essential supplies. “Our mission is based on providing comfort to those in our community,” said Amber Hunter, Executive Director of T2B. “We’re doing our best to give comfort, not only to patients right now but to the front-line warriors.”

“We hope that these protective materials will help bring a little ray of sunshine to both the front-line workers and their patients during this difficult time,” she said. “Not only is this the most giving community but the strongest and together we will get through this.”

Photos courtesy T2B.