Courtenay’s Wayward Distillery is doing its part to help keep you safe.
The company has donated 2000 litres of its hand sanitizer to the Comox Valley Community Foundation for distribution to not-for-profits and emergency services in the Comox Valley and Campbell River.
It will be packaged in 20-litre pails with integral spouts.
As supply and costs ebb and flow, Wayward CEO and founder Dave Brimacombe said there’s been a constant need for hand sanitizer in the region.
Brimacombe said when the pandemic started, the Wayward staff started producing hand sanitizer “guerrilla-style and just getting it out to as many people as we could.”
“Essential services, frontline workers… everyone who needed it, we made it for them. So when this crisis happened, and there was a need for hand sanitizer that came out, we were able to pivot our operations to make hand sanitizer, and get it out to the community,” he said.
“This donation to the community foundation is so that people who need it can get it and they have a convenient and easy place to get it. They just reach out to the community foundation and they will allocate it and then they come here and pick it up and it’s super easy and low impact.”
Organizations that need hand sanitizer are “strapped” and this streamlines the process of getting it out to them, Brimacombe added: “They don’t have the time to go through it or source it, so this just makes it a lot easier for us to get it to the community and for the community to get it from us.”
Not-for-profits may submit a request for up to a maximum of five pails by clicking here and completing the online form.
Brimacombe reached out to both the Campbell River and Comox Valley Community Foundations because of their broad reach.
“The team at Wayward loves to play and work right here, in this spectacular part of the world. We’ve always been part of community fundraisers, farmers markets, and festivals and events throughout our almost six years of business in the Comox Valley,” he said.
Comox Valley Community Foundation president Matt Beckett said they’re very happy to be able to support this initiative.
“It is yet another example of our community stepping up to (help) our front-line agencies respond to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Beckett said.
“The use of hand sanitizer contributes to good hand hygiene, and will be invaluable to the many organizations in our communities needing to transition their operations to ensure safe service.”
Wayward is a certified BC Craft Distillery that ferments and distills BC honey into spirits and was one of the first distilleries in the province to add hand sanitizer to its list of products that they make in Courtenay.
It’s licensed by Health Canada to produce the hand sanitizer, which is formulated in accordance with World Health Organization standards, and is on the Government of Canada’s approved supplier list.
“We’re a distillery,” Brimacombe said. “We make alcohol for people to drink so for us to be able to help our community at this time of need is great.”
