Pride & Joy makes PPE for free

Coach and bus industry supplier Pride and Joy Clothing is making face masks, wash bags and aprons for care homes – for free.

The Chesterfield-based company, which has seen all its business disappear, closed its doors in March but Managing Director, Jane Phillips, then heard that care homes had shortages of PPE: “I went back to the factory and collected some suitable fabric, with the idea of making some,” said Jane.

Jane Phillips, MD, Pride & Joy Clothing

“I can’t sew a stitch, but I got samples of the face mask, wash bag and apron from a care home and then got family an friends to work cutting and sewing.”

Jane’s own father is in a care home, so she has a perspective on the problems there: “By next week we’ll have made 400 items to give to care homes and anyone else who needs them. I did run out of fabric, but I have now bought another 100 metres from my own pocket.”

Jane says she has been touched by the number of people who have volunteered to make the PPE, and is still getting ‘orders’: “Anyone who wants them just needs to ask,” said Jane.