Goodwill Industries of Kentucky has announced all 66 of its stores, including locations in Hopkinsville, and Murray will reopen next week.
The temporary closures came as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but all locations will open Wednesday, May 20. All stores will operate under normal business hours. In addition to opening its retail stores, the nonprofit will reopen its Centers for Education & Employment, which exist to serve Kentucky job seekers who have disabilities or other barriers to entering the workforce.
In March, the organization furloughed approximately 1,000 of its 1,700 employees across 66 stores statewide. More than 90 percent of those employees will return to work this month.
Below are some of the current guidelines Goodwill is taking to keep employees, customers, and participants safe. Goodwill is monitoring and updating its health and safety best practices as they change:
- Requiring all employees to wear face masks and recommending the use of latex or nitrile gloves while working
- Requiring customers and employees to maintain a social distance of six feet or more
- Establishing a ‘greeter’ position to monitor the customers entering the store
- Placing floor stickers to designate where customers should stand
- Giving customers the option to have donated items unloaded by an employee
- Sanitizing donated items prior to them being placed on the sales floor
- Conducting health surveys for all employees returning to work
- Monitoring health and checking temperatures of all employees before each shift
- Using CDC-recommended cleaning supplies to disinfect the store every two hours
- Sanitizing counters and credit card terminals after each use
- Thoroughly cleaning each store every night
- Requiring employees to wash their hands for a minimum of 20 seconds whenever they remove their gloves
- Utilizing sneeze guards to protect both customers and cashiers during sales transactions
- Temporarily closing dressing rooms for protection of customers and employees
- Sterilizing carts and baskets before and after each use
- Providing hand sanitizer for all customers and employees to use while in the store
- Encouraging customers to wear face masks and gloves while shopping