Harbor Freight Tools donating its entire supply of masks, gloves to hospitals

Harbor Freight Tools is donating its entire supply of personal protective equipment to hospitals dealing with shortages as health care workers fight to save Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the details?

Founder and owner Eric Smidt made an announcement over the weekend asking customers to "Help Us Help Your Hospital," saying his company's entire stock of N95 masks, face shields, and nitrile gloves would be donated to hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms located in the communities served by Harbor Freight stores.

"Although we certainly won't have enough of these supplies to fill everyone's needs, we're going to donate everything we've got," Smidt wrote. "We also recognize there are so many other critically important people responding to this crisis and that there is need everywhere. We've chosen to focus our efforts on hospitals with a 24 hour emergency room with the hope that we can help as many people as possible right now."

Smidt provided instructions on how to request the protective equipment from Harbor Freight:

If you work at a hospital with a 24 hour emergency room in need of these items, please ask the office in charge of procurement at your hospital to provide us with the information we'll need to determine if we can make a donation. If you're not with a hospital, but would like to give us the name of a hospital with a 24 hour emergency room in your community that might need our help, please email us at hospitalhelp@harborfreight.com, identify the hospital's city and state in the subject line, and our team will follow up.

He emphasized in all capital letters: "PLEASE DO NOT MAKE REQUESTS AT YOUR LOCAL STORE OR OUR CALL CENTER AND PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT HOSPITALS—THEY'RE BUSY HELPING THEIR PATIENTS."

Smidt noted that the hospitals Harbor Freight will be able to help will receive an email voucher when the supplies are available for pick up at their community's local Harbor Freight store.