When the COVID-19 pandemic started in March Brian Allen and his wife started making masks and launched Bright Ideas Design out of their home in Cedar Rapids.
Allen says they kept getting requests for orders and business picked up. He tells KCRG-TV 9 it has financially supported them while he’s been out work as a DJ.
Since launching a website in May, they’ve done almost 2,000 orders, but Allen says things are slowing down. Allen says he noticed a drop in demand when businesses started opening up, and that they had a several week period with little to no orders at all.
That's not preventing them from continuing their work. Allen says as schools figure out their plans for the fall and positive COVID-19 cases continue to rise, he’s expecting a big second wave of people needing masks.
“We’ve continued making them, nonstop since things slowed down, as if they were still going at peak level. And until we run out of storage here we’ll keep going,” Allen tells KCRG-TV 9.