The Mask Makers Guild

The Mask Makers Guild began in Putnam County, New York, in mid-March. A group of us were reading about shortages of personal protective gear for first responders and we wanted to help. This County is full of talented people. Two professional stitchers reviewed patterns available online, tweaked them a bit, and made prototypes. An ER Doctor tried them on and gave feedback. When we had a basic patterns, neighbors started sewing with whatever materials we had in our homes—quilting cotton, lengths of elastic, floral wire for nose pieces. As our production has grown to meet needs, we continually modify the design based on feedback from end-users. An environmental engineer helped source medical grade HEPA fabric to provide basic filtration in the masks. The H15 filter media doesn’t replace the protective capacity of N95 masks, but it’s helping to bridge the gap until supply lines for purpose-built N95s are restored. We began by focusing on first responders in our own Putnam County, and as demand grew, more volunteers came on board to cut, sew, quality check, sanitize, field requests, package and deliver—nearly 900 people! We extended help to nursing homes, medical practices, and essential workers like grocery store staff, sanitation crews and postal workers. We also do pop ups at local food stores and hand out masks and gloves free of charge to the immunocompromised and Senior Citizens during their designated Shopping Hours. As word of our production spread, we began getting larger requests from other counties and New York City, including firehouses, NYC School Resource Officers, Hospitals all over the 5 Boroughs, the NYC Department of Corrections, children’s hospitals—even an order for 2,000 masks from an EMT union, and Indian Point and most of the local Veteran’s Hospitals and Camp Smith TO BE CLEAR: we are NOT SELLING MASKS, and NO ONE is making a profit. We are GIVING them to first responders and essential workers who need them. Sometimes their parent organizations do make donations to the guild for materials, and for that we’re grateful. To keep production rolling, we’ve begun sourcing materials in a tight marketplace to keep production rolling. That’s why we’ve set up this GoFundMe. Please realize the amount shown above is what the Guild has raised for materials not what the current balance is and have been running for almost 2 months non stop. To date we have distributed over 8500 handmade masks, several thousand KN95’ &N95 s donated by Home Depot, gloves, hand sanitizer, face shields and mask extenders. Erin uses the funds to purchase any necessary materials needed for the guild Until now, we have worked with small donations of materials, purchases from our members’ own pockets, and some money donated by community members toward supplies. Given growing order sizes, it makes sense to bulk purchase things like elastic, and the HEPA filter fabric, That one purchase alone was almost $4,000. Recently Local 28 donated 17,000 nose pieces for the masks, local 15 gave a hand on rounding the edges, previously we were purchasing coated wire. Lancaster pools even chipped in to help us cut out a HePa filters. We have grown large that we now needed to have a larger space to work out of. Clancy’s Moving & Logistics donated a 12x16 Go Mini, to use as production facility, they also have dedicated a team to insert the filters into the masks while still practicing all the proper safety precautions ( gloves, hair nets and masks). We wash and dry every mask on the sanitize cycle with all hypoallergenic laundry detergent and dryer sheets. They are then transported for the filters to be inserted. Once they come back we lay them out and run an ozone machine, once that process is completed they are bagged and labeled with care and sent to their new home. We don’t know how long the need for our masks will last, or if the need will continue at this intensity; by some projections we’re heading into New York State’s apex this week or next. It all depends on the choices we all make to Stay Safer At Home. But until the crisis passes, we’ll keep making masks. Please consider giving via GoFundMe in whatever amount you can spare. We recognize that we’re all worried about the economy, as well. The Mask Makers Guild wants to be as transparent as possible. We have set up a separate bank account for the Guild and have assigned a single treasurer to keeping careful records of cash donations and expenses. If at the end of this journey we have excess funds, they will be donated to others in need as COVID makes its sweep across the nation—perhaps other Mask Guilds or charities established to address the aftermath of the virus. We will be sure to share that information publicly as well. - With Great Thanks and Gratitude, The Mask Makers Guild