COVID-19: 50,000 Bottles Of Hand Sanitiser Donated To Kiwi Schools And Childcare Centres

More than 50,000 bottles of hand sanitiser have been donated and are being urgently delivered to schools throughout the country, ahead of their opening on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Education has purchased 50,000 bottles of hand sanitiser at cost price from supplier NXP. The company has donated a further 50,000 bottles to ensure all New Zealand schools and child care centres have sufficient initial supplies when they reopen.

The sanitiser supplies are part of a shipment of PPE products purchased by schools which also include gloves and face masks - helping to protect teachers, staff and children.

Joe Taylor, CEO of NXP, the country’s largest supplier of business supplies to Government and large corporates, says calls were made to all 6000 schools and childcare centres in the country to ensure orders could be taken in time for delivery ahead of Wednesday.

He says taking thousands of orders of PPE supplies, setting up online accounts and processing the orders in less than five days has been a significant logistics exercise for his customer service and warehouse team.

“Our team worked 16 hour days for the entire long weekend to make sure the deliveries were ready.

“Feedback from school principals has been extremely positive with many saying it has helped ease some of the health and safety concerns faced by staff returning to work at Level 3,” he says.

Along with the donation of hand sanitiser, Taylor says that in collaboration with MBIE the company has opened up online accounts for every school in the country - allowing them to leverage the All of Government (AoG) pricing structure and ensuring they access the lowest possible rates for PPE, kitchen, janitorial and office products over the coming months.

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