18 | MAY 7 • 2020
Jews in the D
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which triggered an email to
Fredrickson’
s inbox, indi-
cating the buyer’
s name and
address.
By the following morning,
so many orders had come
in that his email software
crashed. The team was
stunned.
“That moment was when
we knew there was something
going on that was way bigger
than what we had thought,”
Rapp said.
They went to work by hir-
ing a fulfillment manager and
tapping their network. Within
two days, they had truckloads
arriving of hydrogen perox-
ide, glycerol and packaging
materials.
It’
s been an all-hands-on-
deck effort.
“When we realized what
kind of need was there,” Rapp
said, “we shared it with our
staff and everybody stepped
up and said, ‘
I’
ll give it every
hour I can to try to get this
done.’
”
Jeri Seeley, general manag-
er at The Outpost, said she
is busier than she has ever
been, fielding daily frenzies
of emails and calls. Rapp says
Phil Smith, a bottling line
manager, is driving a van all
day long, delivering hand san-
itizer to places that need it.
In addition to selling san-
itizer, TC has also donated
more than 5,000 gallons,
Rapp said, to “pretty much
every police department, fire
department and nursing facil-
ity Up North,” plus dozens of
organizations in the Detroit
area, including numerous
senior care homes.
Trinity Health, a health
system operating in over 20
states, received 132 cases
from TC on April 17 and then
another shipment on April 21.
“For Traverse City Whiskey
to turn around a little over
21,000 bottles of hand sani-
tizer in such a short amount
of time is pretty remarkable,
and the timing could not
have been better,” said Trinity
Health supply chain director
Jennifer Chenard. “‘
Thank
you’
really is not enough.”
TC has also offered some of
its supply of key ingredients at
cost to other distillers in the
state.
The company has limited
order quantities, so that it can
provide hand sanitizer to as
many people and places as
possible.
Rapp gushes with pride
over his team’
s hustle and
ingenuity. They’
ve repurposed
caps from ketchup, mustard
and windshield washer bottles
— “you name it” — for the
sanitizer.
On Wednesday, April
22, Whitmer gave another
address: “Dozens of business-
es have stepped up,” she rhap-
sodized, before giving shout-
outs to several companies,
including TC Whiskey.
“With our size and scale,”
Rapp reflected, “that brings
with it great responsibility to
our fellow citizens. We really
had no choice but to answer
that calling.”
Hand sanitizer orders can be placed at
tcwhiskeyshop.com.
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