essential businesses are forced to shut down, retailers and retail workers alike face financial uncertainty. But what most retailers arenot doing to remedy this uncertainty is offering shoddy, ineffective do-it-yourself mask kits in order to be classified by local governments as essential businesses, like employees allege Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts has done.
As authorities begin to encourage citizens around the country to use homemade face coverings amid a shortage of masks and companies like Under Armor begin using their fabric to make mas ks for healthcare workers, Jo-Ann recently announced that they would also be donating fabric for similar purposes. But employees of Jo-Ann from four different statesBuzzfeed that the kits were, in reality, just a ploy to keep stores operational as huge crowds flood in to buy craft supplies for bored children.
“We’re trying to keep it [to what the company has described as] the correct kind of fabric— high thread count, 100% cotton — but it’s gotten to the point where we are just grabbing random bolts of fabric off the shelves, whatever fits,” said one store manager near Seattle, who asked to remain anonymous, like all employees interviewed for this article, in order to protect their employment. “We burned through all our clearance fabric.