Dirt Cheap store donates 500 masks to Oktibbeha County

OKTIBBEHA COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A little over a month ago, Vice President Pence called for construction companies and other businesses to donate masks and other PPE to area healthcare workers.

Since then, one area business has been working to gather and donate N-95 masks to health care workers.

Dirt Cheap in Starkville donated more than 500 masks to Oktibbeha County EMA.

Once receiving the medical-grade face-coverings, the EMA office will divide them up and give them to various health care providers and first responders throughout the county.

Dirt Cheap CEO Rob Lynch said the donation fits in with his company’s overall culture of giving back to the community.

He said the store is based in Mississippi, but there are more than 130 locations across North America– several of them making similar local donations.

“When Vice President Pence called on all businesses to donate a few weeks ago, what they had in their inventory to give to the medical professionals and first responders, we’d already been doing it for a few weeks, and we were running out of what we had in supply and we went and bought some more. We air-freighted them over here. We pulled some strings. We made it happen,” said Lynch.

Lynch said the company plans to continue looking for opportunities to give back. Earlier this week Dirt Cheap donated almost 1,200 masks to Lauderdale County.