SYRACUSE — HealthWay of Pulaski on Feb. 3 announced it donated Intellipure air-purification systems to 18 Syracuse businesses or organizations, including several restaurants. The air purifiers will help to improve air quality in these indoor spaces and “promote cleaner air,” CenterState CEO said in a news release. The donation “represents an effort to connect local […]
SYRACUSE — HealthWay of Pulaski on Feb. 3 announced it donated Intellipure air-purification systems to 18 Syracuse businesses or organizations, including several restaurants.
The air purifiers will help to improve air quality in these indoor spaces and “promote cleaner air,” CenterState CEO said in a news release.
The donation “represents an effort to connect local businesses impacted by the pandemic with local products to support their safe operations,” it added.
CenterState CEO; the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, Inc.; the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce; Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh; and Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon joined Vinny Lobdell, Jr., global president of HealthWay, to make the announcement.
Those involved announced the donation at the Onondaga Historical Association, one of the system recipients.
HealthWay donated and installed the systems. The company also trained and educated the businesses and organizations on how the systems operate and their “efficiency” so they could share that information with employees and customers.
HealthWay worked with CenterState CEO, the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, and the City of Syracuse to determine which businesses had needs, CenterState CEO said.
McMahon told the gathering that the data indicates restaurant sales-tax generation for 2020 declined “well over 20 percent. And that is no joke,” he said. “Our community’s going to rally like no other to support our restaurants over the next few months.”
The units, recipient reaction
The Intellipure system is a medical-grade, air-purification system that captures and permanently removes viral and bacterial particles from the air, down to .007 microns — smaller than the coronavirus — through its disinfecting filtration system (DFS) technology. Each compact unit protects up to 500 square feet and is individually tested and certified to exceed traditional HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filtration, “providing the highest level of ultrafine particle and virus removal,” per the release.
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This machine’s very easy to install. It’s wall mountable. You can plug and play, so there’s not a lot of engineering around it. You don’t have to customize it. This would give very effective cleaning in a space up to 500 feet,” said Lobdell, when asked if the machine on display at the OHA event would be one that restaurants would use.
Lobdell also noted that many of the purifier recipients have supported HealthWay “in various ways, and it only made sense.”
In total, HealthWay’s donations represent a $20,000 direct investment in businesses within some of the industries “hardest hit by the pandemic,” CenterState CEO said. The donated purifiers that HealthWay manufactured in Oswego County are the same as those that are now in use in industries and facilities “globally,” including school districts in Syracuse, Chicago, and New York City, and Upstate University Hospital, Crouse Hospital, and hospitals in the New York City area.
“This machine is a medical-grade air cleaner, so what this is going to do is going to change the air in the space in a 500-square-foot space two to three times an hour,” Lobdell said at the OHA event. “It’s going to remove the smallest, ultra-fine particles, so all of our machines have been tested against COVID-19-sized particulate. They do surrogate testing. So, those particulates that you’re talking about are generally much larger than the small, ultra-fine particle. These machines are generally meant to remove the really small particulate that are floating in the air that are ingested, inhaled, and can make us sick.”
Kitty Hoynes, an Irish pub and restaurant in downtown Syracuse, “certainly pivoted a lot” in 2020, making sure that its staff and customers were safe and “these beautiful units here certainly helped that,” David Hoyne, publican at Kitty Hoynes, said about the air purifier.
“We can do a lot of things in the restaurant. We can create great food, beverages, present them properly, but the one thing we can’t do is anything about our fresh air and certainly HealthWay has given us that solution … We have a fighting chance now,” said Hoyne.
“As a childcare program serving children in the middle of this COVID-19 pandemic, clean air is a critical piece of promoting a safe environment for children to learn and play while parents are working,” Tanika Jones, owner of It Takes a Village Family Daycare of Syracuse, said in the release. “We are grateful for the gifts of two Intellipure air purifiers that we otherwise may not have been able to afford, considering we are a small business operating on a small budget during this difficult time.”
A pandemic can present business opportunities, McMahon noted in his remarks, referring to HealthWay.
“When you look at the fact that we have a fast-growing company in Central New York … giving back to the community so that our restaurants can market themselves so people can feel confident and comfortable … they can go to their favorite restaurant, have a meal, and be safe.”