4 Businesses That Have Pulled Off Feel-Good Pivots on the Fly
Their actions prove that every dark cloud can indeed have a silver lining.
By Jennifer Spencer •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Humanitarian actions often sprout from unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. Of late, that includes companies temporarily pivoting in an effort to assist the masses out of goodwill and augment the efforts of first responders and essential workers who are keeping their respective communities running.
Here's a look at four select companies among many that have gone out of their way to do their part.
From Table Covers to Face Covers
Textile fabrication shop LA Linen is best known for its table covers and event linens. But once it became clear that COVID-19 was a very serious matter, owner Danny Levy stepped up. "In order to ease fears and panic within my team, we quickly focused all of our efforts on using our resources to produce helpful goods," says Levy. "We are now only producing face masks as opposed to any of the event and home-decorating products that we normally produce in our LA-based manufacturing facility. We are staying centered by working towards the goal of helping others."
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From Protecting Dignity to Protecting Health
Aunt Flow is known for stocking business and school bathrooms with freely accessible menstrual products, and it didn't take long for them to realize something needed to be done in the earlier days of the pandemic. "When companies went remote and schools started closing, I was staring down the end of our company; we had to pivot fast," shares Claire Coder, founder and CEO. "Given we are a registered FDA importer and we manufacture Class 2 Medical Devices (normally tampons), we immediately moved our resources to supply FDA-approved, 3-ply masks. We are now supplying millions of masks to Veterans Affairs, state governments and hospitals across the country. We call this people helping people. Period."
From Fun Alcohol to Serious Alcohol
Birmingham-based Dread River Distillery has, like many of his peers, converted to producing hand sanitizer. In an article on NBC.com, co-owner John Cubilec said, "What we're doing basically now is taking the high concentration of alcohol that we would normally be throwing away and we're using that as a product that we can then distribute to the community." Dread River has also donated bottles to local hospitals and emergency services.
From Feeding the Community to Feeding the Front Lines
Tikka Indian Grill is a chain of restaurants in New York that temporarily halted services at the end of March and soon set up a GoFundMe seeking support from the community, for the community.
"I was fuming for almost a month over being forced to have all my restaurants closed," owner Julie Chowdhury shared during a recent email conversation. "I was angry because I had this golden opportunity to help people, staring at me in the face. I could serve people who don't have food to eat, who work so hard everyday risking their lives for ours. A few people saw what I saw. They understood how I was feeling and knew what they felt was right. It is because of their good hearts that we are able to serve the essential workers that serve us. So now, each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we go to different front line workers to donate food."
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At the end of the day, crisis has proven that when push comes to shove, we — as individuals and as businesses — really do come together as a collective, and we really are all in this together.
