Continental Linen Services (CLS), a 123-year-old family-owned food and beverage/uniform rental/mixed commercial laundry company based in Kalamazoo, MI, has seen firsthand the economic destruction wrought by the COVID-19 and how companies in the Wolverine State have worked together to get through the pandemic.

CLS President Kurt Vander Meer shared an example of collaboration involving a small restaurant that was about to give up when a large order came through that helped them bridge the gap during on-and-off shutdowns that ran from March 2020 through June 22 of this year. “They got creative,” Vander Meer says of area eateries. “They did ...