Seattle-based department store Nordstrom, known for designer brands, is shifting gears and producing medical masks to help healthcare workers battling the coronavirus. It is sewing more than 100,000 masks that will be sanitized before being distributed to healthcare workers across the country. Members of the Nordstrom alterations teams in Washington, Oregon, Texas and California will sew the masks and give them to Providence Health & Services, a nonprofit health care system which operates hospitals in six states.

Along with its efforts to ease the personal protective equipment shortages, Nordstrom closed all stores in the US and Canada while providing ongoing pay and benefits to all store employees impacted by the temporary closures. The Nordstrom Executive Leadership Group is forgoing a portion of their salaries. CEO Erik Nordstrom and his brother, president and chief brand officer Pete Nordstrom, both say they are declining their salaries from April until September.

nordstrom press release: Working Together in Our Communities