Southern Brooklyn and Industry City businesses collaborate with non-profit to create PPE
“They’ll pivot from sewing gowns for Macy’s to gowns for hospitals.”
Libby Mattern, who runs a non-profit called Course of Trade Course of Trade that offers free sewing instruction and job placement assistance in the garment industry, has collaborated with several companies, including Malia Mills to make thousands of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline workers to keep them safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have been working with Malia Mills for the past seven year running production so between the two of us we’ve taught people and placed people,” Malia Mills’ Production Director and Founder of non-profit Course of Trade Libby Mattern told this paper. “Then when COVID-19 came, we had to pivot. I had been working with the city prior to this, through my non-profit. When I saw there was a need for sewing and a need for PPEs, i reached out and rallied a team of factories in South Brooklyn to sew isolation gowns.”