MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
Another industry hit hard by the coronavirus is the cosmetic industry, in particular nail salons. Most nail salons are closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. That hasn't stopped the Vietnamese nail community in Memphis from taking advantage of their closures in a special way.
Those manicures and pedicures are temporarily on hold. Nail salons all over the country are closed.
"In the business, we just have a lot of holding hands and very close customers. We planned to close even before the lock down just to stay safe for our families and our customers," said Bang Nguyen, a member of the Vietnamese nail community.
Nguyen's family owns a nail salon in Knoxville. When they made the choice to close, they also made the choice to provide service in another way.
"My sister and I said we're not going to use a lot of these masks and a lot of these gloves. Let's just put it out there that we're going to donate to anybody that needs it," said Nguyen.
He called on the Vietnamese nail community to make donations to health care workers. In Knoxville, they donated about 8,000 masks and 2,000 gloves. Then, Nguyen decided to polish up their efforts right here in Memphis.
"We just have to do what we can do to support our health care workers. A lot of my friends and a lot of my clients in the nail industry are the nurses, the doctors," said Nguyen.
The nail community buffed up supplies across Mid-South hospitals. Nguyen's friend Joey dropped off about 5,000 masks and more than 25,000 gloves on Friday, alone.
"I didn't expect it to be that much. I was hoping for a thousand or two thousand," said Nguyen. "It's not me. It's the Vietnamese community. Everybody was really, really generous. A lot of them have already donated even before I started to call out for help."
The Vietnamese community has added a sort of 'top coat' for our heroes in white coats and scrubs. They plan to collect more masks and gloves to distribute to health care workers and hospitals.