Local Muslim-Owned Company Makes Masks during Pandemic
According to Apparel News , AST Sportswear/Bayside Apparel has designated 30 of its sewing machines, usually used for making T-shirts, to now make cotton face masks for hospitals. Last week, the company shipped 1,200 masks, and estimated a shipment of 25,000 this week to Southern California hospitals, with the possibility of growing that recipient base to Detroit, New Orleans, and Alaska.
Although the CDC does not recommend cotton face masks for surgery, they do allow them to be used for other applications in hospitals and healthcare facilities.
The company reconfigured manufacturing almost overnight.“We actually ordered 30 more machines just to make these masks. Our workers are all here, we’re trying to not lay anybody off,” sales manager Nadir Zulfiqar said. The company has 500 employees now sewing face masks.
Abdul Rashid, Shoaib, Taher, and Mohammed Dadabhoy of AST Sportswear Inc. in Brea, stated that their company began to produce reusable cotton face masks last Wednesday to donate to hospitals and healthcare facilities “strictly at our own cost.”
The company shipped 1,000 masks Monday morning, free of charge, to the office of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.
AST has already donated more than 5,000 masks to hospitals, healthcare facilities and nursing homes in California as well as in Michigan, Texas, Nevada, and other states. It plans to donate an additional 50,000 by the end of this week.
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