Hanesbrands Inc. is sending 2,000 tents to employees of its contract sewing operations affected by the Haiti earthquake last month.
The family-sized tents are on their way to the port in Miami and should arrive in Haiti late next week, according to Winston-Salem-based Hanesbrands. The tents are being given to families of employees of its contract T-shirt sewing operations needing assistance in Port-au-Prince.
Hanesbrands sewing operations were suspended following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, which has been followed by several aftershocks, leveled much of Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Since then, most of its 3,200 employees have gone back to work, and it expects to return to pre-earthquake production levels by mid-February. Hanesbrands said last month that two employees were killed during the quake when a wall in a nonproduction section of a plant collapsed.
The tents cost $250,000, and Hanesbrands said that Miami-based Seaboard Marine will ship the tents free of charge, while Dallas-based Bear Transportation is transporting them to Miami at a reduced rate.
Additionally, Hanesbrands is sending water, food and other supplies from its Dos Rios textile plant in the Dominican Republic.
