A Dumfriesshire business has donated 100,000 items of PPE to care homes, nurseries and charities in the region.
Eco Group, which is based in Annan, delivered the disposable aprons to 14 businesses and organisations as a thank you for their hard work during the pandemic.
A total of eight care homes, four nurseries and two charities across Dumfries, Annan, Lockerbie and Gretna received the donations, which were dropped off by the firm’s Dry Ice team.
Paul Currie, operations director at Eco, said: “We were pleased to be able to show our thanks and appreciation for all their hard work and dedication during the pandemic by donating the PPE.
“Our Dry Ice team spent a week delivering a total of 100,000 disposable aprons to care homes, nurseries and charities in Dumfries and Galloway and got a warm welcome wherever they went.
“We hope it will prove useful to them in their day-to-day work.”
The Dumfries firms to benefit were Little Acorns Pre-School Learning Centre, Charnwood Lodge Care Home, MaxPlay2, Allanbank Care Home and Lochduhar Care Home.
In Annan equipment was gifted to Lydiafield Care Home, Leonard Cheshire, Annan Court Care Home, Sparklers Nursery and the Annan Activity and Resource Centre.
The other recipients were Sparklers Nursery, Gretna; Notwen House Care Home, Kirkpatrick Fleming; Dryfemount Residential Care Home and Westfield House Care Home, both in Lockerbie.
The disposable aprons came from Eco’s Response Solutions division which also supplied PPE and sanitising solutions to businesses and industries during the pandemic.
Laura Ryrie, a room leader at Sparklers Nursery, said: “We were delighted to receive the donation from Eco which was a lovely surprise.
“We use the aprons for serving food to the children and they have proved to be very good quality.”
During the pandemic, Eco responded to the nationwide PPE crisis by delivering one million items of PPE to UK care homes within seven days at the start of the outbreak.