Mike Rowe Small Business bFive40 masks Donna Brin South Carolina

The owner of a small business in South Carolina, bFive40, is speaking out this week to credit former “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe with saving her business during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Small Businesses Hurt By COVID

“We began making fabric face coverings branded for his foundation. And he posted [it], our shop and it went wild and we did everything we could to keep up with the demand and it’s one of those just to dream come true having just an incredible amount of activity at our shop at a time where so many small businesses are struggling,” Donna Brin, the founder and CEO of bFive40, explained to “Fox & Friends.”

Located in the town of Little River, bFive40 specialized in making fabric-covered items like “T-shirts and banners for corporations and events,” according to ABC15.

Like many other small businesses all over the country, bFive40 was halted because of COVID-19. But Brin managed to pivot and use the coronavirus to her advantage by using her fabric material to make masks. 

Mike Rowe Steps In To Help Small Business bFive40

The story of a “female-owned small business in South Carolina” making masks caught Rowe’s eye.

In fact, the reality host was so touched by this that he decided to team up with Brin.

Rowe made it so that each mask that was bought from her business would benefit his foundation mikeroweWORKS, which donates $1 million in scholarships for skilled trades.

The foundation also promotes training in such fields to “close the skills gap” in America.

Rowe even advertised bFive40’s masks to his six million followers on Facebook!

“I’m not sure what I did personally,” Rowe said.

“I have 6 million people on a Facebook page and they support my foundation and when this whole mask thing came out I was right in the midst of trying to raise money. Look, I don’t know the real science of masks, I just know I can’t go anywhere without them and I didn’t want to sell them. I didn’t want to do them in China.”

Related: ‘Dirty Jobs’ Host Mike Rowe Has A Message For Joe Biden Right Now

Mike Rowe’s Foundation Delivers Big For Small Business Owner

He added that as soon as the post went up, his foundation raised $250,000 by people ordering “tens of thousands of masks.”

In fact, the demand for bFive40’s masks was so great that Brin had to set up an apprentice program.

“Donna set up an apprenticeship program in South Carolina for inspiring seamstresses in conjunction with the local school there and all of a sudden we had a story that didn’t have nothing to do with masks but everything to do with people who pivot and figure out a way forward in a very weird time,” Rowe explained.

Brin added that finding people who could actually sew was “one of the biggest challenges,” lamenting that it is “such a lost art.”

However, she went on to say that the program eventually “came together beautifully” as people were taught by “masters” of the sewing trade.

Related: Mike Rowe Busts Non Essential Worker Myth Then Blasts AOC And Cuomo’s Disregard For American Workers

Small Business Owner Donna Brin Is Grateful To Mike Rowe

In the end, Brin could not be more grateful to Rowe for taking the time to help out a small business owner like her during this pandemic. 

“We have a lot — we just are so appreciative and grateful to mikeroweWORKS foundation for believing in us and allowing us this incredible opportunity and we are closing the skills gap, too, which is what he does,” she said.

Just when we thought we could not love Mike Rowe any more, he pulls something like this! He truly is the epitome of a good American man. 

Read what Mike has to say in his own words about this story in the Facebook post below: 

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