ST. PETE STRONG
Leigh and Mike Harting / 3 Daughters Brewing
St. Pete Strong
25 May/June 2020 StPeteLifeMag.com
The owners of one of St. Pete’s
favorite breweries knew they could
contribute to the community shortly
after the seriousness of the coronavirus
became apparent in mid-March. “We
realized we had a chemist and a lab and
alcohol, so we quickly made a batch of
hand sanitizer in 4-ounce bottles,” says
Leigh Harting, who with husband Mike
Harting, owns and manages the brewery
operation with 57 employees.
When they posted on social media that
they were distributing free hand sanitizer
the next day to anybody stopping by,
the response was overwhelming. “We
got thousands of emails and comments
and phone calls within a matter of
hours,” she said. “We realized we
needed to do this on a bigger scale and
with a distribution process that would
be responsible and safe.” They called off
the giveaway and made the decision to
go all-out and commit to producing as
much hand sanitizer as possible.
As of mid-May, 3 Daughters has
produced some 4,000 gallons of hand
sanitizer in 10,000 containers of all sizes.
“Sourcing plastic bottles has been a
challenge. We were buying them in any
“At one point we accepted 2,000 urine
specimen cups from Johns Hopkins.”
workers in hospitals across Tampa Bay,
departments, and postal workers. Two
partners helped raise $40,000 just for
ingredients. They kept some employees
on just to help with the production
and distribution. “Drive-through”
free distribution days for the local
community were announced on social
media. The response was steady.
the country, large corporations and
companies seeking hand sanitizer. “We
were getting calls from Southwest
Airlines, Walmart and UPS in Atlanta
saying they would purchase as much
as we could make,” says Leigh. “But we
decided, sorry, this is about helping our
community.”
Then in early May came the big shocker.
Leigh was contacted by the “Kelly and
Ryan” morning show on Fox about
appearing in a segment honoring moms
on a Mother’s Day show. With three
daughters and a commitment to making
hand sanitizer, they called her a local
hero and presented her with a $5,000
award which she
plans to distribute to
the community.
“Employees have donated
their time on weekends and
after regular working hours
to manufacture over 2,000
face shields.” Emmanuel Cerf
Emmanuel Cerf/Polypack Inc.
Face Shields
Emmanuel Cerf likes to solve problems, come
up with solutions. His family owns Polypack,
Inc., an industrial company that is a global
leader in the packaging industry. Plastics is the
name of the game at Polypack (as in shrink
wrap), so when a shortage of face shields
was announced, he jumped into action. “After
hearing about the lack of personal protective
team decided to design a face shield that could
be manufactured with our available equipment
and stocked materials,” he said in an email.
“Polypack employees have donated their time
on weekends and after regular working hours
to manufacture over 2,000 face shields, all of
which have been donated free of charge to
home workers in south Florida and even as
far away as medical ICU professionals in New
York.”
Go, team Polypack!
/StPeteLifeMag.com