The Police Benevolent Association of New York State along with State Senator Michelle Hinchey (D-Saugerties) have teamed up to donate more than 2,000 masks, along with other PPE items for use at the Ulster County’s COVID-19 vaccination site at the Hudson Valley Mall.

The donation was announced Wednesday in a press conference held on an off day at the county vaccination center at the former Best Buy store at the mall. On hand were Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos and SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras. They stood against a backdrop of stations set up for administering the shots, snaking queues reminiscent of those found on a theme park ride for those waiting to be vaccinated and chairs set up for vaccinated people to wait the required time after receiving the shots.

The donation also included 450 face shields and a lot of hand sanitizer — 480 4-oz. bottles, 120 8-oz. bottles, and 12 one-gallon jugs. The PPE will go to the Ulster County Department of Emergency Services to help bolster vaccination efforts at the county-run site.

Police Benevolent Association of New York State President and University Police Officers Director Ryan Law said the donation totals $91,000. The union represents officers in the state Department of Environmental Conservation, state Park Police and SUNY Police, along with state Forest Rangers.

Law said they chose Ulster County because it was a good central location. It was one of two counties in the state that received a donation, the other being St. Lawrence County near the Canadian border, he said.

“In the darkest of times we’ve seen some of the brightest spots in our communities stepping up and really coming together, and we’ve seen the best of our society and our community which has really made this pandemic manageable,” Hinchey said in thanking the PBA. “This equipment represents protection, it represents caring about people's lives, it represents how we move forward and represents making sure everyone in our community is safe.”

When asked about the status of the county's vaccination efforts, Ryan said the county has reached a major inflection point in its efforts to get shots into residents' arms.

“We’re doing four to five times more shots in Ulster County each week,” Ryan said.

The mall site will reopen Thursday and is set to administer shots to more than 2,000 people a day, he said. The donated items will help protect county employees along with an army of hundreds of volunteers who staff the site.

Hinchey added that vaccination efforts are ramping up and officials have exceeded President Joe Biden’s goal of having 100 million shots in American arms in his first 100 days. State officials recently dropped the vaccine eligibility age to 50 as they continue to expand the eligibility list.

But Hinchey admitted there is still much work to do and she said she wants to see essential workers such as bank tellers, farmworkers and construction workers prioritized.

“These are people we need to see added to our list,” Hinchey said.