Under Armour Donates €1M of Sportswear to Hospital Staff

May 1, 2020 

Sports retailer, Under Armour, is donating nearly 15,000 items of performance sports apparel - amounting to around €1million - to aid healthcare workers in the UK and across Europe during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The company says the donation was made after receiving direct feedback from NHS staff on what would be of value to their work. Products include Under Armour’s HeatGear t-shirts which are cool, dry and light, as well as its Recovery sleepwear and tracksuits to help make staff feel more comfortable on shift. 

Under Armour says it is also working with NHS charities and hospitals in Manchester, home to its UK head office and double Olympic champion Jade Jones, as well as the home cities of its sponsored athletes, Liverpool FC defender Trent Alexander-Arnold and WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua, who have joined in the efforts and produced videos for social media.

 
  
The European initiative follows its work in the US to manufacture and deliver PPE supplies to local medical institutions from its Lighthouse innovation facility in Baltimore, Maryland. Executives at Under Armour had heard from local hospitals about a shortage of protective gear, so they turned the Baltimore headquarters—known as the UA Lighthouse—into a factory that makes disposable surgical masks, face shields and even bum bags (fanny packs in the US). 

These new surgical masks are made of a single piece of fabric and don’t require any sewing. That means they can be produced rapidly in large quantities to meet the needs of medical workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. Under Armour estimates it can manufacture 100,000 of these masks a week.