GREELEY, Colorado (April 1, 2020) – Companies in Colorado are finding unique ways to keep staff employed and help out the community even with the COVID-19 crisis and social distancing in place. For Greeley-based WeldWerks Brewery Co., making hand sanitizer after their taproom closed on March 14 has been a way to keep a number of their 35 employees busy.
Working with local distilleries (Tower 56 Distillery and Pine Bluffs Distilling) and bottling suppliers (AMCO), WeldWerks will deliver another batch of hand sanitizer tomorrow to critical organizations, including Banner Health's North Colorado Medical Center and the Greeley Fire Department.
“It’s wonderful to be able to have a mutually beneficial product come to the hospital,” said Kaitlin Vickers, Banner Health business program manager. “We’re able to keep their employees working by making the hand sanitizer and they are able to keep our nurses working.”
Vickers said they will be able to distribute the 30 gallons of hand sanitizer at cost to Banner’s hospitals throughout Colorado as bottles of hand pumps near patient rooms.
Neil Fisher, co-owner/head brewer at WeldWerks, said the hand sanitizer is made possible through a generous donation from the WeldWerks Foundation. The $10,000 grant allows WeldWerks to produce the hand sanitizer and sell it at cost to local organizations as well as community members in need.
"We’ve been really fortunate to find some awesome partners," Fisher said. "Our real hope is that we’re just bridging the gap with hand sanitizer and keeping Greeley and Weld County safe."
Fisher said WeldWerks is offering free 4-packs for medical personnel and community members can request hand sanitizer online at weldwerksbrewing.com.
North Colorado Medical Center is a fully accredited, private, nonprofit facility licensed in Greeley, Colorado operated by Banner Health, a nonprofit healthcare system with 28 hospitals in six states. It serves as a regional medical center offering a comprehensive scope of community-based and specialty healthcare services for an area including southern Wyoming, western Nebraska, western Kansas and northeastern Colorado. It offers Emergency care, cancer care, heart care, orthopedics, inpatient and outpatient surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, rehabilitation, intensive care, lab and medical imaging, medical air transport and the Western States Burn Center. For more information, visit www.BannerHealth.com/NCMC.