A Kamloops woman’s idea to get masks to front line workers has turned into an army of volunteers making thousands of personal protective equipment items, including nearly 14,000 masks.
In just ten weeks, Sew the Curve Kamloops has made over 18,000 pieces of PPE, and while on NL Newsday, Tamara Vukusic says they are now offering hand made masks to the people for a small fee through their website.
“We’re really going to start encouraging people that make requests to support our sewists who gave up ten weeks of their livelihood to donate to Sew the Curve Kamloops so we created a directory,” she said. “There’s more than twenty sewists on line who are volunteers who are now selling masks and you know their prices are so reasonable, you now it’s local, this is a cottage industry.”
She says the volunteers are basically trying to cover their costs with several donating the money straight to charity.
“These are all seamstresses who have perfected the mask because they’ve made so many. Some of the sewists are sewing for a donation to the food bank another woman started Masks for Muscles. She lost her son to muscular dystrophy and so she’s seeking donations to muscular dystrophy,” Vukusic added.
As health officials encourage more and more people to wear masks when social distancing cannot be guarantees, she is hoping Kamloopsians will continue to by local.
“We’re really hoping that people will go to this page rather than them buying something that gets shipped in from overseas because I really hope that people will support all these people that were there for our community in this greatest time of need,” she added.
Vukusic says Sew the Curve has donated PPE to over 300 local organizations, daycares, senior homes, and clinics.