As the number of COVID-19 cases increases nationwide, so too does the demand from frontline healthcare professionals for personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves.

One Toronto salon is doing its part to supply gloves as hospital supplies dwindle.

While Fuzz Wax Bar shuttered all its 14 stores across the GTA and Montreal on March 18 in an effort to safeguard the safety of staff and customers against the spread of COVID-19, the salon is still making an effort to help its community by donating 150,000 pairs of gloves to Toronto hospitals and medical centres running low on supplies.

According to Megan Savage, the Marketing Manager at Fuzz Wax Bar, the salon has a history of working with organizations such as Sistering, a non-profit that provides space and support for homeless or precariously-housed women and trans people throughout Toronto.

Savage says that donating their excess gloves “was always kind of a no-brainer to us.”

“We had a tonne of additional PPE, and we wanted to contribute back to our community,” Savage says. “With such a wide range and so much support that we’ve received from our own community, we wanted to make sure that we were able to give back.”

The team at Fuzz was approached by a group of medical students from the University of Toronto who were collecting gloves for hospitals in the city running low on gloves. Around this same time, the salon was independently orchestrating a donation of gloves to Sistering, Savage says.

Savage says that she and her team just want to make sure that the supplies go to those who need them most at this time.

Late last week, Reuters reported that the world’s largest glove supplier was falling slightly behind in production of gloves in face of the world’s growing demand due to increasing COVID-19 cases.

“We started collecting everything last week and then we had everything picked up on Monday,” Savage says. “And later this week we will be dropping it off to Sistering.”

“We are beyond grateful for all of the support we’ve received, and are proud to pay it forward,” a post on the wax bar’s Instagram reads.