The City of Hartford distributed thousands of masks to more than 100 small, essential businesses on Wednesday morning.
According to Mayor Luke Bronin, the PPE was distributed to small businesses with less than 50 employees that were deemed 'essential,' and stayed open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Today, we've got 100 businesses coming to pick up more than 3,000 masks," Mayor Bronin said.
Mayor Bronin said there would be another distribution for PPE in the future. He encouraged small, essential businesses to make the request through CTCovidResponse.org.
A second distribution was also made on Wednesday in partnership with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain, and OKAY Industries of New Britain.
OKAY Industries is producing 4,000 face shields that will go to the City of Hartford, St. Francis Hospital and Greater Hartford nonprofits including Oak Hill, American School for the Deaf and Options Unlimited, Inc.
"We're going to continue to work in partnership in every way we can. We're going to continue to try to get much-needed supplies out to those small businesses, organizations that need them, as well as making sure that all of our first responders, all of our health care workers, all of our nursing home workers, everybody who relies on this PPE to keep themselves and families safe," Mayor Bronin said.
