(By Andrew Davis, Published by WSAV)
A Jasper county business that changed their production plan during the pandemic is now giving back to local schools.
Fire and Pine usually makes high-end wooden wall covers and plaques, but when the pandemic began, the buying slowed down, and production stopped.
So to keep people working and the line moving, they switched their equipment to create face shields instead.
When regular business started up sooner than expected, the owner decided to give back.
Handing out 1200 face shields to Jasper County Schools and 7000 to Beaufort County Schools.
“I think everyone in this time just wants to do something,” said Ryan Martz, Owner of Fire and Pine. “Everybody wants to find their niche. to help out the bigger cause and we decided to do it. if we lose money, we lose money, It is about doing our part to help out. This is a small community here and we want to look out for each other.”
Martz says the face mask business kept them going for months. Now that they are back in regular production it enabled him to hire almost his entire staff back sooner than expected to fill orders for Christmas.