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Justice Furniture making gowns, masks for Cox Health

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The COVID-19 pandemic has created a need for more medical supplies and a plant in Lebanon has stepped up to provide face masks and gowns. Angie Jackson of Justice Furniture said the company partnered with Cox Health of Springfield about two weeks ago to start making hospital gowns and masks. “They believed that supplies would possibly be limited and we also saw a lot of our key business get put on hold. We service a lot of hotels and as most people know, the travel industry so people are putting hotel renovations and new construction on hold. A lot of retail stores, not Helton’s in Lebanon, are shut down because they’re not deemed essential. We were getting concerned so the mattress plant seemed like a perfect fit “We have a tremendous amount of labor that knows how to sew and we have a lot of equipment that can sew so it’s kind of a perfect fit,” she said. Jackson said she approached Cox about making the gowns and masks. Jackson said she knows Cox CEO Steve Edwards personally. “I reached out to him and said, ‘Would you happen to need anything?’ and he literally texted me back in about 30 seconds and that’s kind of how it went.” “It’s different, we’re used to using upholstery fabrics and for Cox we are taking medical pads and sewing them together, cutting them and sewing so it’s a different process there,” she said. “We are making a lot of isolation gowns What we are finding out now is that medical supplies, like these pads, are becoming limited so we’re looking at our raw materials to see what we have,” she said. “The isolation gowns that we’re making for Cox, we’re using our plastic that is part of our natural supply chain on the furniture side We’re not having supply issues because it’s something that’s not related to the medical field.” She said they made 1,000 gowns Tuesday and their goal was to make 1,500 on Wednesday. Jackson doesn’t yet know how many they will produce in total. “We’re getting faster every day,” she said. “I’d like to get out about 3,000 a day if we could.” They are just starting on the masks, but she said Cox’s immediate need was for the gowns. She said all the plant employees are still working. “I’ve been able to hold everybody and a lot of people are doing things they’ve never done before,” Jackson said. “The good thing is that when we do have an order for a piece of furniture or a bed, I’ve still got my team intact so I can still make those. We still have some retailers that are open that still need product. We really are just taking it week by week.” Not only are the gowns and masks keeping the Justice Furniture employees working but Jackson said she was happy that they are also serving a useful purpose with the current COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s really important to keep my employees working and we have so many industries that are part of the critical infrastructure for COVID-19.” “I know furniture makes people feel good,” Jackson said.”But the thought that we’re actually helping doctors and nurse protect themselves and helping other people, if we can play any small role in that, it definitely makes us feel good.”