Local cornhole board manufacturer now making face shields for healthcare workers

DOUGLASVILLE - Life has changed for everyone in the face of COVID-19, but for two Atlanta-area businesses, an entire core business shift was needed to tackle the pandemic at hand.

West Georgia Cornhole, which manufacturers cornhole boards among other products, partnered with medical tech company Paces MedEquip to mass-produce PPE, or personal protective equipment, for healthcare workers on the front lines.

"Two Georgia companies coming together, kind of working in harmony," said Brandon Greba, the owner of West Georgia Cornhole.

According to Paces MedEquip regional business director Rebecka Solar, their leadership team met to find a local manufacturer for these resuable shields -- which are also outside of their normal business speciality, surgical instrument and scope repair services.

A member of that leadership team reached out to see if West Georgia Cornhole’s 15,000-square foot shop could help fill an order of at least 20,000 masks.

"We’ve got customers right here in Atlanta that are using these, we’ve got customers in Augusta, all the way down to Sarasota, Florida," Solar said. "So the need is definitely out there. It’s a race to see how many we can make."

In the Atlanta metro area, these masks are being utilized at local doctors offices, Northside Hospital and WellStar Health System, which runs 13 area hospitals.

West Georgia Cornhole is still producing 50-60 board sets a day. He guessed that's because people are still looking for a socially-distant, safe activity to do outdoors at home.

"They were talking 10,000 up to 250,000. It’s easy to sit there and maybe do one or two, but your eyes get big and 'Oh my gosh,' when you’ve got to do so much of these," Greba said. "We had to work fast and put our heads together to figure it all out. So that’s what we did, and so far it’s working so good."

After a week of research and development, West Georgia Cornhole repurposed its CO2 laser cutter to create 48 shield films at a time, as well as 86 acrylic pieces for brackets, complete in 36 minutes. After being laser-cut, the flat brackets are placed on a conveyer belt that goes through a 400-degree oven that's normally used to cure the cornhole boards' finishes. The foam headband and velcro attachments are installed later by Paces MedEquip workers.

Greba estimated they have produced 10,000 face shields so far.

After being laser-cut, the flat brackets are placed on a conveyer belt that goes through a 400-degree oven that's normally used to cure the cornhole boards' finishes. The foam headband and velcro attachments are installed later by Paces MedEquip work

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They’re also repurposing their sewing department to create cloth masks, tied with ribbon leftover from making Christmas ornaments, since elastic is hard to come by these days for producers. Those cloth masks were mostly intended for employees' safety, but after word got out, they started selling those too for a nominal fee.

"We made some for all our employees and stuff when it first started happening and then after that, people kind of posted them and stuff," Greba said. "And after that, people would ask, ‘Hey could you make some?’ So we were like, yeah, sure we’ll make them."

On top of that, the cornhole business is booming despite the pandemic, Greba said. West Georgia Cornhole is still producing 50-60 board sets a day. He guessed that's because people are still looking for a socially-distant, safe activity to do outdoors at home.

"It was crazy because I kind of thought it would be the opposite, with people kind of watching their money not knowing what's going to happen with this virus," Greba said. "It took me by surprise because it's the total opposite. We've been going full-steam with the boards."

Greba said his company is down six employees who had to be home to take care of family with no school or daycare, but they have already hired several new employees who needed new jobs after being laid off elsewhere.

"We’ve been pulling some other people that have been out of employment, some teachers and stuff like that that are kind of laid off or furloughed, so we’ve been kind of getting some extra help there with some of those people," he said. "So it’s been kind of a cool thing bringing it full circle to help out the frontline workers and some of these other people that are needing some work right now."

ACL Director Brandon Greba said his company is down six employees who had to be home to take care of family with no school or daycare, but they have already hired several new employees who needed new jobs after being laid off elsewhere.

At the end of the day, Greba said West Georgia Cornhole wants to do its part to help get us all back to normal so it can go back to hosting its American Cornhole League events and collaborating on promotions with those like the Atlanta Braves and SweetWater Brewing Company.

"We make cornhole boards, so we’re not really helping out. So when I had the opportunity to get in and do this, I jumped and wanted to do whatever I could," Greba said. "I want to get back to normal where we can have our events and host our tournaments and stuff like that."