Bravo: Mattress and Furniture Companies Donating Beds, Sewing Face Masks

We all need a little good news right now—like stories of how people and companies are rising to the challenge as we face the Coronavirus (COVID-19) global crisis together. Within our own industry, I’ve been impressed by the generosity and creativity demonstrated by some of our CertiPUR-US® participating companies in mobilizing their manufacturing resources to help meet some of the medical supply challenges.

Below are just a few of our heroes—the list is growing. If you are a company tooling up to help, please let us know so we can share your efforts, too.

• Serta Simmons Bedding, the nation’s largest bedding manufacturer, is donating 10,000 mattresses to New York City hospitals and temporary medical facilities to help meet the need for 140,000 additional hospital beds. It’s also calling on its peers to do the same. Serta Simmons will also use its factories and expansive distribution network to produce up to 20,000 beds per day at the lowest possible cost if needed. The $2 million donation is being facilitated through its relationship with Relief Bed International, a nonprofit that provides beds to impoverished people and disaster victims around the world.
• Mattress manufacturer Eclipse International is producing an initial batch of 38,000 face masks for health care professionals. The three-layer masks are being made in its New Jersey factory from two materials used in mattresses. The company has shared a mask pattern, specifications and source information for the elastic bands with its network of 17 domestic licensees, some of which have begun their own mask-production programs.
• Lava & Son, a Chicago manufacturer of mattress components, is converting excess sewing capacity at its Southwest Side plant to help address the critical shortage of protective face masks to prevent infected or quarantined people from spreading the virus. Lava will produce some 2.5 million masks over the next three months and is prepared to make mattresses to help meet increased medical demand.
• Furniture manufacturer McCreary Modern, North Carolina, has produced and distributed more than 5,000 Class II, surgical-quality masks at no cost with a commitment for 38,000. In addition, the company is paying its employees for a full 40-week and benefits during a two-week shutdown so they can self-quarantine.
• HS Manufacturing, part of Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company, is producing new medical mattresses and free-standing metal beds for emergency assistance sites. The company is ramping up capacity, starting with 4,000 mattresses and 2,000 metal beds per day at below market prices.
• Kingsdown has adapted its production capabilities in Canada to make hospital and emergency-care grade beds for healthcare facilities throughout North America during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• California-based Ortho Mattress has reconfigured its Phoenix, Arizona factory to produce 1,000 non-N-95-rated face masks per day for essential hospitality-industry workers who interact with the public.
• Denver Mattress produced 40,000 non-N-95-rated face masks for hospitals and organizations, including the Veterans Administration in the Denver region. More than 20 of its employees are working six days a week sewing some 5,000 masks per day. The company also will manufacture additional beds for hospital intensive care units.
• Compton, California-based Diamond Mattress is making and shipping medical-grade mattresses to hospitals, healthcare facilities, and shelters nationwide at cost. The medical-grade mattresses are fluid-proof, easily sanitized, and anti-microbial, and can be compressed and followed for easy transport.
• Brooklyn Bedding is filling orders for thousands of mattresses a day to be shipped for free to hospitals and government agencies in the region and at discounted rates nationwide. The Phoenix-based company also is producing masks for essential workers in Arizona.
• Ashley Furniture Industries has donated more than 1,100 mattresses to U.S. non-profit organizations, valued at $200,000. The company also supplied 250,000 meals to Feeding Tampa Bay, part of the Feeding America network, to assist individuals and families during the COVID-19 crisis.
• Ohio-based Norwalk Furniture has redirected its upholstery production to the manufacturing of personal protective equipment such as gowns and masks for local hospitals.
• Sleep Number dedicated sewing machines and employees at its Irmo, S.C. plant to repair nearly 200,000 new N95 surgical masks that the South Carolina Healthcare Association found needed new elastic bands.
• Malouf is providing retail partners and their families free premium membership to Recovery Suite digital wellness apps, designed to help people facing behavioral and mental health challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• U.S.-based licensees of the Spring Air brand are producing thousands of face masks made of stretch-knit ticking layered with a nonwoven fabric for those not required to wear an N96 ventilator mask to help relieve the shortage of protective face gear.
• Members of the Therapedic International licensing group are producing and donating tens of thousands of protective masks to health care workers, first responders and law enforcement utilizing their factories in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey and North Carolina.
• Mattress manufacturer MLily USA, has partnered with the Ole Smokey Moonshine distilleryto donate 75 gallons of much needed medical-grade hand sanitizer to three different hospital networks in Eastern Tennessee and in South Carolina.
• Bedding e-tailer Purple Innovation is donating 10% of net proceeds from the purchase of any Purple product to the production and donation of newly designed beds that are specifically manufactured for the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Detroit-based bedding supplier Reverie has donated more than 100,000 non-medical face masks for essential workers and the general public. The initiative helps make medical masks more available for front-line medical professionals by decreasing the use of medical masks by non-medical essential workers.
• Furniture of America is producing high-quality, five-layer face masks in partnership with California-based affiliate Aidway, a company specializing in personal-care products. The masks will be manufactured in the U.S.

The CertiPUR-US program has created a 60-second public service announcement on how to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. Feel free to share it on social media. We wish you and your loved ones, employees, friends and colleagues good health. We are there with you in spirit during this difficult time.