“We could not get through this on our own,” said Kellie Battaglia, development director for access. “We traditionally rely on food donations to help supplement foods that we have to purchase.”
After the pandemic hit the rogue valley, local nonprofit access says it’s seen an 80 percent increase in the need for food aid in Jackson County. “It’s been really hard,” Battaglia said, “We have had to stop accepting food donations just for health and safety reasons.”
Battaglia said access has had to rely on their purchasing power and help from the community. “We could never do that without the support of organizations like BioSkin.”
Through donating mask sales, the company has donated over $60,000 to ACCESS. “Especially as their needs are going up this year it felt really fantastic to be able to help them out,” said BioSkin marketing director Taylor Cropper, “And know that they’ll still be able to provide those resources to our community.”
In total, BioSkin has made over $100,000 in donations across the Rogue Valley, Eugene, Portland, and Seattle. “We have worked a little bit with access over the last few years, and have just found them to be a tremendous partner in our community.”
Through the donations, access is able to give 250,000 meals to hungry families in the rogue valley. “It’s nice knowing that all of the money that we’re able to donate to them goes very directly to providing food assistance to people right here in the valley,” cropper said.
“To have businesses like BioSkin reach out to us,” said Battaglia, “And people call and say how can we help, we know what you do is important and we want to do anything we can to support you, it’s inspiring and humbling and it makes really hard days so much better.” If you want to buy a mask online or visit their retail store in downtown Medford.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.