Kentish Bennett is trying something new.

“Going from making jackets and wedding gowns and cocktail dresses and blazers, this is something completely different, but I enjoy doing it,” Bennett said as he settled into place behind a sewing machine earlier this month.

While he’s loved to sew for years, the Altamont man landed a new job earlier this month making hospital gowns, allowing him to enjoy his passion while earning a living.

“It’s been going really well,” he said. “I enjoy sewing, and the best part of it is I am helping the world and helping people.”

Known as the IsoGuardian, the gowns are the latest venture from longtime business owner Sandy Beck. Unlike the disposable gowns in most medical facilities and nursing homes, her product is designed to be washed and reused.

“It can be washed 300 times, which is a huge savings,” Beck said. “If we compared this to a disposable gown, 34 of our gowns would replace 10,000 disposable gowns.”

Designed to keep out blood and pathogens like the coronavirus, Beck says the gowns have been tested and met the CDC’s top standard for hospital use.

Her daughter, Sara Rudin, designed the IsoGuardian and says access to reusable PPE could prevent hospitals from running low on supplies, like many did during the pandemic’s early stages.

“Who knows when COVID will come back, or if there will be the next global pandemic in six months, a year, or whenever. We’re prepared,” Rudin said.

Making gowns is a major pivot from Beck’s primary business, Tidy Tots Diapers, but she says she and her staff wanted to do their part.

“We saw it as paramount importance to help our frontline people during COVID, so we worked nights and weekends,” Beck said. “We did diapers during the week and we worked on our isolation gowns on nights and weekends.”

For Beck and her team, it took more than hard work. She says she was fortunate to receive $10,000 from the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which launched a new grant program earlier this year to help companies with a myriad of problems during the pandemic.

“They have helped me every step of the way with Tidy Tots, and they have really come through in the last year with how challenging it was to make it through the pandemic,” Beck said.

Beck used the state funds to cover the cost of FDA approval. Once that process is complete, she will begin marketing the products to hospitals, where the fight against COVID-19 continues.

“To know that we are helping people on the frontlines who are putting their life on the line, it meant the world to us,” Beck said.

Bennett said that Beck "has the passion that I have, and so if we can help the world and get things going and make sure everybody is healthy and happy, that is the best thing."