Saskatoon PPE company aims to provide teachers with advanced masks

PRINCE ALBERT -

With Saskatchewan's mask mandate soon coming to an end, a Saskatoon company that has supplied schools in the province with PPE wants to give teachers a supply of masks if they want them.

Benchmark PPE owner Justin Stuart says teachers have been spending their own money to buy masks with a higher level of protection than those provided by schools.

“While we may have been selling masks to the schools, they were the three-ply, so teachers had been buying the C95 personally for the pandemic,” said Stuart, who added it didn’t feel right to make teachers pay for masks.

“We don’t really want to be making profits on personal purchases for people, especially teachers who have been very good to us over the years, so they can have protection in the workplace.”

Stuart and his coworkers decided on a fundraiser where every dollar raised would be matched by Benchmark PPE to give their high-level protection C95 masks to teachers who want them.

The fundraiser ends on Feb. 28, the same day masks will no longer be required in schools.