Tag Archives: Coppercraft Distillery

Hospitals put out the call, the community responds

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Coppercraft Distillery deliveries hand sanitizer to Holland Hospital.

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org

If there is something that staff from West Michigan hospitals have learned during the past couple of weeks, if you ask, the community will rally to help.

As the announcement of the Stay Home, Stay Safe order came out and area hospitals began to see the number of COVID-19 cases rise, hospital officials put out a request for items.

Metro Health – University of Michigan Health Public Relations Manager Jamie Allen said Metro Health has received a number of donations from the community. Among those contributing are:

• Amway donated 3,400 bottles of hand sanitizer

• Steelcase donated 1,800 face shields

• Byrne Electric donated 500 face shields

• The Center for Physical Rehabilitation donated an assortment of gloves, wipes, and sanitizer

• Planet Fitness donated hand sanitizer and disinfectant products

• Posh Nail Spa and Girl Cave Nail Salon donated gloves

• Hoekwater Family Dentistry donated masks and gloves

• Home Depot donated make, filters, and gloves

“We are now asking for homemade cloth masks from the community,” Allen said, adding that they have received about 600 handmade masks from individual donors. “These are something we want to provide to our non-clinical staff members.”

Metro Health – University of Michigan Health is accepting donations from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Items are to be brought to Metro Health’s System Services and Learning Center, 1980 Metro Court, Wyoming. People should enter using the door on the south side of the building, facing M-6. 

Area schools contribute

With public school and college buildings shut down due to the governor’s order, staff at KentISD and several area universities and colleges discovered they had extra personal protection equipment that would not be used for the current school year.

School News Network reported that the Kent Career Tech Center’s Exploring Health Careers program has donated personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, isolation gowns, and cleaning items like hospital-grade wipes and hand sanitizes to Spectrum Health and the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. 

According to School News Network, other schools that have donated include Rockford, which donated 5,000 medical gloves and more than 1,000 masks and Grandville High School science department donated 219 pairs of protective eyewear to Metro Health. As well as Grand Rapids Community College, which donated more than 70,000 pieces of medical and personal protection equipment and have had faculty members volunteering time and expertise to Spectrum Health and GRCC’s Nursing Programs loaning thermometers and donated more than 1,500 thermometer probe covers to the Grand Rapid sPolice Department. 

Various departments at Grand Valley State University have donated medical supplies to regional health care systems and facilities. Efforts include donating disposable gloves from science laboratories as well as custom-made masks designed and created by engineering students and faculty, and face shields and respirators donated by occupational safety and health laboratories.

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” said Michele DeWitt, lead lab supervisor with the GVSU Chemistry Department, who led efforts for donating 90,000 disposable gloves to Spectrum Health. “We don’t want the doctors, nurses and other health professionals to get sick. We want them to be able to help us.”

The Padnos College of Engineering and Computing and the applied Medical Device Institute worked to design and create approximately 1,000 face masks, all made by hand from fabric and metal. Because elastic is in short supply, the design incorporates a metal clamp to hold the mask in place comfortably. Those masks will be donated to American Family Care, an urgent care in Grand Rapids that was already in short supply of equipment.

Businesses getting creative

Business leaders have also rolled up their sleeves to help where they can.

Hearing that there was a major shortage of nasal swaps for the COVID-19 test kits at a Grand Rapids hospital, The Right Place staff identities Keystone Solutions Group, a member of its medical device consortium, MiDevice, that had the capabilities to fulfill the request. The company’s team worked to develop the swabs and being production for West Michigan health care systems.

Many have heard of Holland’s Coppercraft Distillery’s efforts to produce hand sanitizer with the company delivering a 1,000 gallons to Holland Hospital before the end of March and another 1,000 gallons to the Detroit Fire Department last week. 

While Coppercraft is focused on area hospitals and other emergency agencies, Three Oaks’ Journeyman Distillery has answered the call of providing hand sanitizer to the community. 

“In the early 1940s, the Warren Featherbone Company supported the war effort by manufacturing raincoats for the U.S. Armed Forces,” said Journeyman founder and self-proclaimed history buff Bill Welter. “Now, almost 80 years later, we’ve converted our production facility in the historic Featherbone factory to make hand sanitizer for front-line healthcare and essential service providers—as well as our community.”

In March, Journeyman had a fundraising bottle sale for its Hourly Employee Fund and from there requests for hand sanitizer started rolling in with the company website taking online orders. 

Southwest Airlines Grand Rapids station staff prepares to take snacks to Spectrum Health. (Supplied)

Due to national restrictions, travel has been down especially on the airlines. Southwest Airlines found it had an abundance of snacks it normally serve for on-board flight service and wanted to make sure food items were put to good use. This week, Southwest Airlines Grand Rapids station dropped of 30 boxes of snacks to teams at Spectrum Health as a way of saying thanks to all the healthcare employees putting in long hours to battle COVID-19.

Donations are being accepted at many facilities. For a list of items, click here.  

West Michigan distillery plans to make, donate hand sanitizer to area healthcare workers

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Coppercraft Distillery has announced plans to make about 10,000 gallons of hand sanitizer for local healthcare providers. (Coppercraft Distillery)

By Joanne Bailey-Borosma
joanne@wktv.org

When Brian Mucci learned that distilleries across the nation were ramping up to help make hand sanitizer, the CEO of Coppercraft Distillery jumped right on board to help the West Michigan community.

Starting next week, the Holland-based distillery, will be adding the production of hand sanitizer to its production of spirits and cocktails. 

“Times of crisis require each of us to determine how we can use our work for good,” Mucci said. “This is an opportunity to step into a need and assist our community, and we are honored to do so in such a practical way. As the COViD-19 situation continues to develop, we have been inspired by numerous stories of people lending a hand to assist one another. This is one way our team can express gratitude for all front-line healthcare workers during this exceptional time.”

For the first phase, Coppercraft Distillery staff plan to make about 10,000 gallons of hand sanitizer that will be donated to local healthcare providers, including Holland Hospital.

The company will follow a recipe provided by the World Health Organization with the hand sanitizer being comprised of primarily glycerol and a 96-percent ABV neutral grain spirt. When done, the Coppercraft Distillery’s hand santizer will adhere to the World Health Organization’s guideline, as directed by both the Federal Drug Administration and the Alcohol, Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, by exceeding the 60 percent alcohol minimum. The recipe provided by WHO will make a had sanitizer that is will be about 80 percent alcohol, said Gwen Vryhof Bultema, a spokesperson for Coppercraft Distillery. 

Coppercraft Distillery will continue production of its spirits and cocktails. (Coppercraft Distillery)

Vryhof Bultema said the distillery has been working with companies across the country to get the necessary supplies to make the hand sanitizer. The materials should be at the distillery by next week with production starting then.

 

Depending on how the process goes, the distillery could be making the sanitizer for a longer period of time and may add it to offerings, Vryhof Bultema said. 

For now the focus is to donate to the healthcare providers who are struggling to secure hand sanitizer. Currently hand sanitizer, along with face masks and thermometers are in high demand.  

Coppercraft Distillery was founded in 2012 and was one of the first licensed distillers in the state. The company has expanded significantly in recent years with products now available at nearly 1,300 retail locations across Michigan. 

Chef Cook-Off at Lakeshore Fork Fest: Coppercraft Distillery vs. Butch’s Dry Dock

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defaultcoppercraft_squareJoin the Lakeshore community for an evening of flavors, brews, baked goods and more at Coppercraft Distillery! The chef from Coppercraft Distillery will go head-to-head with Butch’s Dry Dock in a live cook-off. Each restaurant will compete to create the most mouth-watering dish using items provided by a Visser Farms.

 

Presenting sponsor, Coppercraft Distillery, is working with the Township to finalize plans to build a kitchen making the Lakeshore Fork Fest a good opportunity to showcase their Chef and some of the food they’d like to offer in the near future. According to General Manager Paul Marantette, “Local First does great work and it is always fun joining their team to plan a successful event!” Look for Coppercraft at other community events throughout the year. So far in 2016 Coppercraft Distillery has participated in four large-scale events including being the official sponsor of Tulip Time for the third consecutive year.

 

Coppercraft Distillery started in Holland in 2012 by Kim and Walter Catton when they decided to take their passion for whiskey and bourbon to a new level by opening a distillery. Marantette says Coppercraft “focuses on a premium product using quality ingredients from the very start with our grain that comes from a farm just five miles from our location, to the locally sourced produce and citrus we incorporate into our cocktail program.” Coppercraft chooses to support local businesses such as Central Park Market and the Farmers Market to secure these needs, and let the freshest ingredients speak for themselves as featured on the weekly cocktail specials menu.

 

Coppercraft will host this year’s Lakeshore Fork Fest, which will feature samples from an array of local food vendors while you enjoy the live cook-off. The cook-off will feature a Chef from Butch’s Dry Dock and Chef Kelsey Winter-Troutwine of Coppercraft Distillery. The Grand Rapids native has spent the last six years working in some of the finest restaurants in downtown Chicago – most recently as a Sous Chef at mk The Resturant, a staple in the Chicago dining scene.

 

Feast on an array of flavors with Local First at the Lakeshore Fork Fest on Tuesday, September 27 from 6-8:30 PM at Coppercraft Distillery. For tickets, click here.

 

To learn more about Local First and upcoming events, visit the group’s website, www.localfirst.com.