In the last few weeks, the entire world has changed.
As immigrant entrepreneurs, we want to do what we can for our adopted city of New York. We've spent the last 9 years figuring out how to make the highest-quality, most comfortable shoes.
But today, what New Yorkers need today are masks. So we're taking our expertise in design and managing global supply chains and shifting some of that into making 20,000 high-quality, non-medical grade masks for the public, who can choose to buy one and then also donate them for households in need.
Since the CDC has recommended that all Americans wear masks in public, we have geared our business, along with our experienced materials vendors in South Korea, to create high quality, reusable, non-medical grade copper filer seamless masks, hand washable up to 50 times.
Why copper? Research shows that viruses, including COVID-19, start degrading when they land on copper surfaces, and last only hours on copper, as opposed to 24 hours on cardboard or two to three days on plastic and stainless steel surfaces. Our masks use the same antimicrobial copper yarn textile found in our shoes, to prevent the wearer from endangering other people with droplets or particles from their mouth.
As part of our Atoms family, what can you do? Anyone can buy a mask on Atoms.com to protect themselves and their neighbors, with the option to buy one and donate one. New York City has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, so we’re donating masks to the NYC Housing Authority who serve more than half a million low-income New Yorkers who need masks. To kick start our donations, Atom’s board member and Brooklyn native, Alexis Ohanian is donating $10,000 worth of Atoms masks, to get them to low-income households as quickly as possible.
You can also help us spread the word about the importance of wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by sharing our #MaskOn campaign on social media.
The goal of our buy-one-donate-one program is simply to break-even in order to increase the number of quality masks we can make, provide and donate to the public as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your support as we start fulfilling mask orders and mask donations in the coming days.
