CBS 19 NEWS | Menswear company teaming up with Virginia 30 Day Fund

Employees of businesses that have been helped by the Virginia 30 Day Fund can now get free protective masks.

According to a release, the Virginia 30 Day Fund and Richmond-based menswear brand Ledbury are working together to donate protective masks to all employees of Virginia small businesses that get assistance from the fund. 

“It doesn’t matter if our economy ‘reopens’ if people don’t feel safe on the job or customers don’t feel safe out of the house,” said Pete Snyder, one of the co-founders of the Virginia 30 Day Fund. “That is why this partnership with the innovators at Ledbury is just so critical. We at the Virginia 30 Day Fund are trying to do everything we can to save as many jobs and small businesses in Virginia as possible, but what Ledbury is doing by donating protective gear to every single small business we fund can actually save lives.” 

The release says Ledbury has transitioned its manufacturing facilities to the production of protective masks for the health care, government, hospitality and service sectors due to the pandemic. 

The company is making protective masks from antibacterial cotton fabrics that can be washed and reused, and it has also partnered with nonprofits to donate masks to help protect the homeless and vulnerable populations in Richmond. 

“As a smaller business owner, I understand how critical capital is to survival during closure, and I know personally a number of businesses that have received transformational grants from Virginia 30 Day Fund,” said Paul Trible, Ledbury’s CEO. “These grants are bridging the gap and keeping Virginia’s small businesses operating during quarantine. With our mask donation, we hope to play some small role in now getting them safely back to work. We feel incredibly blessed to have a product that can help with a critical need, while also keeping our employees busy and factories open. If we can pay that forward to help others in need, we want to do it.” 

The release says Ledbury has not accepted financial assistance from the Virginia 30 Day Fund, and the company is donating the masks to the nonprofit at no cost. Snyder is also an investor in Ledbury. 

Virginia businesses that would like to request assistance from the fund need to have between three and 30 people, be based in Virginia and operating for at least one year, and be owned and operated by a Virginia resident. 

The release says funds dispersed by the fund do not need to be repaid, but if a business would like to “pay it forward” to another small business, it can do so by directing money back to the fund, which will then disburse the money to another eligible business. 

The Virginia 30 Day Fund has raised more than $900,000 since it was launched a month ago, and it has provided direct assistance to more than 145 small businesses that were struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Volunteer teams are still reviewing applications and disbursing funds to at-risk small businesses every day.