ADA, MI — It was about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, when Troy Finnestad — the national accounts and sales manager at Amway — got the call.

A shortage of hand sanitizer amid the coronavirus pandemic was hurting local nonprofits such as Kids’ Food Basket and Spectrum Health. Could Amway help by making some?

One week later, thanks to an effort Amway is calling Project Light Speed, the Ada-based direct sales giant is getting ready to deliver its first batch of hand sanitizer to the two organizations — free of charge.

“This was really an unprecedented effort to pull this many people into this one project,” Finnestad said, noting that 80 people from Amway were involved in the effort.

“This is really a testament to the Amway employee — our enthusiasm, our energy, our willingness to help others.”

Amway has thus far made 14,000, 14-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer. The supply is being divvied up among Spectrum and Kids’ Food basket and is expected to be delivered this week.

Amway is also keeping a portion for its manufacturing and distribution employees in the U.S.

The delivery can’t come soon enough for Spectrum.

The Grand Rapids-based health system, which has 14 hospitals and 31,000 employees, is running “critically low” on hand sanitizer, said Kurt Knoth, vice president of system supply chain at Spectrum.

And that’s a problem, he said, because proper hand-washing and the use of hand sanitizer are two of the biggest steps people can take to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“It’s a key tool in our fight to really stem this pandemic,” Knoth said.

Amway decided to start manufacturing hand sanitizer after Spectrum’s CEO, Tina Freese Decker, reached out to Amway for help, Knoth said. That started a chain reaction that eventually led to Finnestad getting the call to lead the effort to oversee production of the product.

Finnestad said Amway had manufactured hand sanitizer in China in the early 2000s during the SARS epidemic, but hasn’t made the product since.

Amway was able to create the product at its Ada Township-headquarters because it had all the necessary supplies and equipment on hand, including ethanol alcohol, plastic pump bottles and labeling.

“We knew this was a challenge,” Finnestad said, “and everyone across the board has stepped up to deliver on this.”

Kids’ Food Basket, a nonprofit that provides free meals for children from low-income families in Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon and Allegan counties, is running low on hand sanitizer, said president and CEO Bridget Clark Whitney.

She said the nonprofit needs more to ensure the sack lunches prepared by the nonprofit’s employees and volunteers are clean.

“This is an example of where crisis tends to bring out the absolute best in humanity,” Clark Whitney said. “This is an example where Amway is giving the community their best.”

She noted that when she looked online recently to buy more hand sanitizer she was taken aback by the high prices.

“We can’t go on Amazon Prime and spend $90 for sanitizer bottles,” she said. “That’s not where we need to be putting our funds right now.”

Moving forward, Amway is looking to manufacture more hand sanitizer for Spectrum and other organizations. The company is working to secure more of the high-demand raw materials that are needed to do so, Finnestad said.

“The challenge we have is we only have so much product at this point based on our raw material shortage,” he said. “Hopefully that supply starts to come in and catch back up and then we’ll have the ability to help even further.”

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