By Lisa Carolin
Amidst all the tragedies during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are uplifting stories of all the people and businesses stepping up to help.
Chelsea’s Ugly Dog Distillery is helping the community with its decision to transition its distillery into a hand sanitizer production facility.
“It’s been a smooth transition, and we’ve been able to keep our full staff working,” said Rob Mida, manager of the Ugly Dog Distillery, who was born and raised in Chelsea. “We’ve been inundated by people from health care facilities, senior living communities, emergency responders, who need hand sanitizer.”
That includes the St. Louis Center.
Last week, the St. Louis Center was down to its last few ounces of Purell, which has been on backorder. St. Louis Center Public Relations Director Joe Yekulis says the St. Louis Center has 75 residents and more than 100 employees.
“All I had to do was pull up to the back door of the distillery, identify myself, and they took care of me right away,” says Yekulis. “We really appreciate their spirit of community service to keep our environment and employees safe.”
“We plan to give back to the community until our supply runs out,” said Mida, who says that the distillery uses the same ingredients on a daily basis that are needed for the FDA approved hand sanitizer.
“We’re doing our best to manage supply and demand, and want to thank all the local businesses for supporting us and the local population, and for the amount they’re donating when they come to get hand sanitizer, which goes toward buying more supplies,” he says.
Ugly Dog Distillery, which is located at 218 S. Main St. in Chelsea, is currently open 2-8 p.m. weekdays and from noon-4 p.m. Saturdays, handing out containers of hand sanitizer at its front door and filling bulk orders for local businesses at its back door.
