Westerman thanks local businesses; to donate plasma
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4, conducted the first of many planned tours around the county on Thursday to recognize “unsung heroes” in the community who have stepped up to help out during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Westerman, who told The Sentinel-Record on Thursday he tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, will also donate convalescent plasma at Arkansas Blood Institute today in Hot Springs in order to help COVID-19 patients cope with the illness.
“I did the blood drive back on June 12, and part of that ran an antibodies test, and a couple of weeks later they called me and told me I had the antibodies and they were wanting me to donate plasma,” he said.
“There’s so much work being done on therapeutic treatments, and they need the plasma to do that. Hopefully, my plasma will be able to help somebody who has got COVID, or will have COVID, who has a lot more negative reaction to it than I had; hopefully, it will help them to get better.”
On Thursday’s tour, he visited Tanners Team Sports, provided the Hot Springs Police Department with lunch and concluded the day with a visit to Crystal Ridge Distillery. He presented each location with an entry from the Congressional Record deeming them “Fourth District Heroes.”
“We’re trying to recognize what we call unsung heroes; people who have been behind the scenes doing things to keep the economy going, keep the wheels turning, keep us safe during the pandemic,” Westerman said.
“There’s been a lot of recognition, and rightly so, for health care workers, but there’s people who are out on the front lines every day, and I wanted to acknowledge the work they’ve been doing.”
“I think the community around Garland County and Hot Springs, and really across the state, has responded very well (to the pandemic),” Westerman said.
“If you look at how some of these businesses have adapted, the distillery started making hand sanitizer, Tanners making masks. … There’s tons of stuff like that, where we’re seeing the goodness of people come out, and we’re not hearing about that a lot; but I think we should pause and reflect on the good things that’s coming out of the pandemic and the people who have been behind that.”
When the pandemic first began, Tanners Owner and CEO Vince Signorelli said his sporting goods business had to “hunker down” and learn how to best utilize government relief programs.
“As a passion project for me, I began late March to work on … developing the mask program,” Signorelli said. “I was one of the ones early on who saw that masks are likely going to be a part of our lives in some way or another into the summer and into the fall and indefinitely — that this pandemic was not going to turn off like a light switch.”
The result? Tanners was able to develop a “fantastic quality” mask, he said.
“(People) quickly realized the comfort and breathability of it, especially for athletics, so that began our journey, and week by week we started with one person selling, and now we have 30 people, and we probably have 15 people here doing the decorating and the packaging and the logistics and that sort of thing.”
Another result of Tanners producing masks was a connection with the community.
“In the community, there were a lot of people who still didn’t know what Tanners was,” Signorelli said. “We’re quietly as a manufacturer here out in
Mid-America Park, and our customers are all over the country and throughout the world. … Suddenly, because of our mask operation … we’re one of the better-known companies in the area, and it’s just been really, really wonderful to be able to connect with local people.”
Hot Springs Police Chief Chris Chapmond said the department’s primary responsibility in the pandemic is to take care of its employees, and by doing this they are also setting an example for the community to follow.
“We made sure our employees have all the proper PPE, and we’re taking the proper precautions needed, and it’s a difficult situation to deal with because there’s so much of what we respond to that’s instant type of interaction with the public,” Chapmond said. “We’ve done the best we can do with that, we’ve set up protocols throughout the building as far as taking temperatures of employees, monitoring their health, ensuring that they’re well before they come into the building to limit potential exposure, and then we’ve also put in protocols in the front lobby when we’re dealing with the public for walk-ins.”
When it comes to enforcing things such as the mask mandate within the community, he said the department is striving to provide education on why masks are necessary.
“We’re trying to educate as best we can; if we receive a call we have those conversations, talk about the importance of it, using that executive order as a template to when and where,” Chapmond said.
“Our employees are trying to set the example. As you can see around the room we’re in our building, what we feel like a safe environment, but we’re still following protocol,” he said.
“And then we’re using the Arkansas Department of Health as a good sounding board. When a business has a problem or question, we’re making sure we have the resources to deal with that. If a subject is being disruptive in a business and will not leave, or will not comply, then of course we’re willing to address that however we have to; we have state statutes to follow along with the executive order.”
Crystal Ridge Distillery co-owner Danny Bradley said they started making hand sanitizer for the community as a way to save their business that had just opened, but later saw the importance their role held in the community.
“We started with the hand sanitizer about a week after our bar and restaurant facilities got shut down for the pandemic, and it started mostly as a necessity trying to save our business,” Bradley said. “It didn’t take very long after we started out of necessity just trying to save our business that we saw the impact it was making on our community, and we were able to donate some, of course, to first responders and to people who were in need, and especially some children who were in the children’s hospital. … So, initially, it was just a financial decision to save our business, but it didn’t take us very long to realize the impact we were making on our community, as well.”
Bradley’s wife and Crystal Ridge co-owner Mary Bradley said even local emergency rooms couldn’t get sanitizer, “so we had a few people reach out to us before we had made the commitment to go ahead and do that and ask us to research it further to see if it was something we could do, and we were able to get the permit from the government to go ahead and manufacture it. … We were both born and raised here and this is our community too, so we care about what goes on here just as much as anybody else.”
As for the future of community businesses in the midst of the pandemic, Westerman said the “main thing” is for them to be able to go back to work.
“We’re seeing the economy responding positively,” Westerman said. “The tax revenues aren’t down nearly as much as we predicted early on, but it’s all hinging on getting people back to work. … I was very concerned about Hot Springs when the pandemic started because it is such a tourist-heavy area, but the numbers we’re seeing haven’t been near as devastating as we thought. You know you hear stories about how we were on pace for a record year before the pandemic hit, and I think we’ll bounce back and do well.”