Yesterday Governor Pritzker announced new guidelines for the Illinois “Stay in Place” order, effective May 1, 2020.  One of the guidelines requires employers to provide face coverings to employees if the employees cannot maintain safe social distancing requirements.  It also requires all Illinoisans over the age of 2 to wear face coverings in public places if you cannot maintain social distancing. 

 

This past Tuesday, IFCA submitted a list to FEMA of all ag retail and distributor members and their number of employees, to obtain face coverings from a FEMA sponsored program with the Hanes Company in order to provide face coverings for essential industries.  We are told that those face coverings may be shipped to your main office location sometime mid to late next week (hopefully).  We’d like to thank The Fertilizer Institute for submitting the IFCA list to FEMA.

 

As you wait for your face coverings to arrive, in the meantime you can help your employees fashion their own face coverings by following these video instructions from the US Surgeon General: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html

 

IFCA has also assisted in the distribution of hand sanitizer to our members through a program sponsored by the Illinois Corn Marketing Board and the Illinois Soybean Association Checkoff.  We worked with Winfield United and the GROWMARK/FS system to provide the distribution of the boxes of sanitizer which comes in 1 gallon jugs.  The distribution is underway.  If you have questions about that program please email KJ Johnson at kj@ifca.com. 

 

Click here for a rundown of the details of the new Illinois Stay at Home Executive Order, which also relaxes a few provisions for other retail entities and the opening of some State Parks. Please also visit the IFCA Covid-19 Resource Page for many helpful guidance documents for our members.