Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes is flanked by (from left) Supervisors Brian Pacheco, Steve Brandau and Nathan Magsig, along with Lee Ann Eager with the Fresno EDC, at an October 2020 news conference. Photo by Frank Lopez

A million facemasks are available for free for businesses throughout Fresno County.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors and a representative from the Fresno County Economic Development Corp. held a press conference in front of the Hall of Records in Downtown Fresno Tuesday to announce a giveaway of 1 million masks and 50,000 containers of hand sanitizer.

The supplies were made available to California small businesses through the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. The masks come at no cost to the county.

All Fresno County supervisors were present at the event, joined by Fresno County EDC President and CEO Lee Ann Eager.

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce and the EDC went to the board of supervisors to ask them to help implement the giveaway.

“What I really appreciate about this round of passing out masks is that it goes out to our business community, which has been put under duress for the last six months,” said Board Vice-Chairman Steve Brandau.

Supervisor Nathan Magsig said that business owners would be able to pick up free masks and sanitizer at Fresno County libraries in north Fresno and other locations in the county.

Business owners are asked to only take a month’s worth of masks and sanitizer bottles.

Eager said that the she talked to the Board of Supervisors to get personal protective equipment (PPE) into the far-reaching areas of Fresno County.

“As we continue with this pandemic and the business community has to pay more and more in order to stay open, we said that we need to make sure that we can help in anyway we can,” Eager said. “We have over 20 sites that will be handing out masks and hand sanitizers for this next week or until we run out.”

Pick up will begin October 28.

The list of pickup locations can be seen at https://www.revivefresnocounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Million-Mask-Flyer.pdf