At a time when wearing masks is increasingly viewed as key to helping stop the spread of coronavirus, many local school students will be appropriately outfitted thanks to the generosity of a company with international reach that has a plant in Webster County.

CJ Bio America has donated about 7,000 masks to the Fort Dodge Community School District, St. Edmond Catholic School, Community Christian School and Manson Northwest Webster Community School District.

Many of those masks came from Seoul, South Korea, where the company’s parent firm, CJ CheilJedang Corp., is located.

The donation to the schools represents just a portion of the company’s recent mask donations. Company leaders estimate that about 30,000 masks have been handed out.

CJ Bio America makes amino acids used in livestock feed and liquid fertilizer in a plant west of Fort Dodge in the industrial park known as Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation.

The company and its employees have proven to be very community-minded since the plant opened in late 2013. Its employees have helped the Lords Cupboard and Meals on Wheels. They have been very involved in various park and community cleanup efforts. However, the virus that has made the masks necessary has put the brakes on most of those cleanup projects.

Recently, the company distributed about $5,000 worth of gift cards to law enforcement, emergency personnel and frontline workers who have been on the job throughout the pandemic.

CJ Bio America and its workers haven proven to be indispensable on projects ranging from picking up tree branches in parks to providing school children with needed masks. We’re grateful that the company opened its first North American plant here in Webster County and continues to be deeply involved in our community.