PA Chamber says masks can help businesses stay open; Creates “Why I Wear It’ campaign
HARRISBURG – “Why I Wear It.” That’s the new phrase spreading across social media through a campaign led by the PA Chamber of Business and Industry. President and CEO, Gene Barr, says that when Governor Wolf announced the mask requirement for essential businesses, he knew the Chamber needed to do something, “The burden was put on our members to enforce that. Their licenses are at risk. So, let’s lay aside for a moment how people feel about masks. We need it to happen because the burden is on our folks to enforce this.”
Barr says the simple act of wearing a mask is one way of helping businesses stay in compliance and preserve their license to operate, “I have a member who is the CEO of a grocery store chain. He says they’ve got two to three assaults per day on their store associates, trying to get people to wear masks. So, in our view, we needed a campaign that said, ‘we have to wear it and there’s a bunch of reasons why.’ We do believe that there are health benefits.”
Barr says that the “Why I Wear It” campaign, which has its own hashtag, hopes to create awareness that mask wearing can directly help businesses and the economy see some normalcy again, “But it’s also to make sure that that business can stay open, can operate in a healthy manner. That we can protect the employees of that establishment. So, for all of those reasons, we went in along with the Hospital Association, along with the Pennsylvania Medical Society, to begin this campaign that says basically, wear a mask and here’s why I wear it.”
More information on “Why I Wear It” can be found at the pachamber.org and bringingpaback.com. Barr was a recent guest on WKOK’s Sunrise program; you can hear his full interview at wkok.com.
