Nationally, there have been reports of shortages in cleaning and sanitizing supplies. Hy-Vee stores in the metro area have noticed a shortage of anti-bacterial supplies as well. Amber Pharmacy’s Omaha office paired with Hy-Vee to produce hand sanitizer. Pharmacists and temporary employees have made up the production line. One of these pharmacists is Ms. Amy Adams. Usually, Ms. Adams is hard at work completing typical pharmacist duties such as labeling prescriptions and answering phone calls from patients, but recently she has taken over this project to help others.
“I do my normal job probably 25% of the time, the other time is dedicated to the hand sanitizer project,” said Ms. Adams. “We originally started to make hand sanitizer for all HyVee’s store employees because there was a shortage but now we’ve moved on to producing hand sanitizer for HyVees to actually sell to customers.”
At first, the project started small in April, but because of the high demand, temporary workers at Amber Pharmacy will continue to work through the month of June on weekdays to help get as much hand sanitizer out to stores as possible. Production of the product starts off with big totes being filled and mixed with certain chemicals to make the hand sanitizer. That mixture is put into 5-gallon buckets for employees to empty by filling 16-ounce bottles. Once the bottles are capped, they are put in boxes and are then shipped to stores.

All temporary workers are related to full-time workers at Amber. One of these workers is 20-year-old Jack Faulkner who attends Ottawa University in Iowa. He has been working here since the project first started and is continuing to do so until it is completed. Faulkner works by filling the bottles but sometimes mistakes are made during the process.

“Me, myself, I spill a lot but we have spilled boxes of bottles,” said Faulkner, “The worst is tipping over bottles that are already filled because those are a pain to clean up, but I think I’m the worst at it when it comes to that.”
Messes in the workplace happen often but are fairly easy to clean. Paper towels, mops, and puppy pads are kept close by just in case of any accidents that might happen. Besides the messes, there is always a positive atmosphere in the workplace.
“We all have a good time and someone is always cracking jokes,” said Faulkner, “Everyone that works here is super nice and we all have a good time despite how repetitive the work can get.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen all the work organizations and businesses do to help citizens. Amber Pharmacy is another business that is doing its part to help during these troubling times. Many Hy-Vee stores will be stocked with hand sanitizer thanks to all the hard work being done by all the workers included in this project.