The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a bit of irony on the back-to-school business plans for Pro Metal Industries : It’s working overtime to bring students together by building barriers.
Nicknamed sugar cubes, the clear, acrylic boxes are designed to sit on top of students’ desks in classrooms to protect them from potential spread of the coronavirus.
Just on Wednesday morning, company president Mark Brown got an inquiry for an order of 10,000 cubes from a Saskatchewan-based buyer, though he wouldn’t say who.
“We’re back-logged. We’re running at a couple of shifts a day now, two shifts (of eight hours each) just to keep up with demand,” Brown said.
Owned by the Pasqua First Nation, the company is fielding approximately 20 quote-requests from Saskatchewan schools to build the Plexiglas barriers as the new school year looms.
The province’s public and separate school divisions are to delay start dates by a week, with classes to commence on Sept. 8. Some First Nations communities are planning for later start dates at their schools.
Brown said most of the 20 requests have come from First Nation bands. “Because the opportunity they have is they don’t follow school board (directives). Each First Nation is basically able to do what they want with their own school. ”
The Pasqua First Nation originally asked Pro Metal Industries to build 300 barriers for usage at its Education Centre.
After the company received coverage from CBC’s The National a week ago for the initial Pasqua order, its barrier-building business started booming, Brown said.
It includes a quote-request from a school division in Toronto.
For a single custom-built cube, covered on four of six sides, a buyer will pay $425; an order of 20 or more brings down the cost to $395, while 1,000 cubes ordered brings down the cost to $350 each.
Pro Metal’s planning team went with acrylic, because “it has all the properties of glass, but is basically shatter-proof, which is always important when you’re dealing with children and students,” Brown said.
Building the cubes involves programming a computer to cut quarter-inch-thick sheets of the plastic with two high-pressure waterjet heads manoeuvring around an expansive table.
The heads shoot focused streams of water combined with granite-based sand to do the cutting.
“30,000 PSI,” said fabricator Mike Marshall of a stream’s pressure. “We use these to cut metal, too.” The amount of granite mixed in is approximately 1.25 pounds every minute.
Cutting and preparing the sheets for an order of 300 cubes, the size of the initial Pasqua order, will take about two days, Brown said.
The company is ready to do whatever it needs to fill increasing demand, including any 10,000-count orders that might soon be finalized.
“We’ll run as much as we can 24-hour shifts here, but we might have to partner with some other companies locally in Regina to meet that need as well,” Brown said.
“It makes you feel good, right? Giving back, because our first priority is how do our children, how do our students, return safely to school? So we’re very proud we’re able to offer this solution.”
As a First Nation-owned business, it seeks to follow the values and morals directed by the Pasqua leadership, Brown said.
“Community, building relationships and helping out other First Nations.”
To that end, he said the company is working with poorer First Nation communities to help them apply for new funds announced by Ottawa on Aug. 12 .
The $305-million package is targeted at Indigenous communities looking to fight the spread of COVID-19; usages of the money can include educational support. The feds are offering the money through the Indigenous Community Support Fund.
*Evan Radford is the Leader-Post’s reporter under the Local Journalism Initiative
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