The word is spreading that campus units should work with central stores to reserve cloth face coverings for employees who will need them when they return to their buildings later this summer. Central stores supervisor Bill Spratt said earlier this week the special cloth face coverings website received reservations for nearly 17,000 cloth face coverings -- and that number continues to grow. He said central stores is receiving between 3,000 and 5,000 pieces per week from the vendor and delivering orders in the sequence they were received.
The Iowa State-branded cloth face coverings are provided at no cost to the unit, up to two face coverings per employee. Reservations should be for an entire office, unit or department; individual employees are asked to not reserve for themselves.
Employees' face coverings don't have to be university branded; they may sew or purchase other cloth face coverings, too.
Cleaning supplies, too
Central stores also is the designated supplier of cleaning and personal safety items for employees. The website features a COVID-19 "back to work essentials" page that's populated with products handpicked collaboratively by staff from central stores and environmental health and safety. It includes products such as disinfectants, gloves, goggles and face shields, infrared thermometer and hand sanitizer.
Spratt also noted:
- Reservations placed now should be just for employees (faculty, P&S, merit, contract), but not student employees. He said a second reservation phase is planned when units can order face coverings for student employees, including graduate assistants. Central stores carries disposable face masks units can purchase for summer student employees.
- Please respect the two-per-employee limit.
- The branded face coverings are offered in three colors (white, black and red), but central stores has no control over the colors it receives, and therefore can't fill color requests from campus units. Essentially, you get what you get.
- As it fills reservation requests, central stores is working with staff from postal and parcel services and central receiving to deliver face coverings to campus buildings because many still are closed. In most cases, that's to the building's mail room.
