By Chris Lea, WRAL-TV Sports anchor/reporter
October 15th, 2020
RALEIGH, N.C. — From Enloe High School to Maryland and the NBA. Chris Wilcox was known for his fierce play and protecting the paint. Now, he wants to protect his community, the Triangle, from COVID-19.
“Where I’m from, the community invested in me,” Wilcox said. “I could go to anyone of my neighbors’ houses, go get a meal, all the doors were open. Basically what I try to do is open those same doors for my community.”
When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Wilcox started “Wilcox Distribution” as a way to get PPE distributed to under-served communities.
“When I (saw) the prices of masks, gloves, shields and things like that, I was like ‘hold on now’,” Wilcox said. “There’s got to be a way to get good products into the communities because we can’t afford to pay premium prices for some of that stuff.”
Along his journey, Wilcox discovered Integrated Viral Protection’s newest product — ‘IVP Air’ — a bio-defense indoor air filtration system that kills 99.9% of airborne virus. ‘IVP’ chose Wilcox Distribution as their primary distributor.
“Grocery stores may benefit from this, places where people may congregate, churches and schools,” said Dr. Louis Vaickus, the Medical & Scientific Advisor for Wilcox Distributions, the CEO and founder of akta Pharmaceutical Development.
“We need everybody to get back and get comfortable,” Wilcox said.
Outside of his love for the community, Wilcox had a great friend catch the disease, which made him want to move faster.
“Just hearing him speak on the phone and just talking about how he doesn’t know what tomorrow may bring, that’s tough,” Wilcox said.