Sophie Gray
Local Journalism Initiative
A band of volunteer mask warriors is taking production of personal protective gear into their own hands, sewing cloth masks to help protect people around the province from COVID-19. Karen Amos, a realtor from Osoyoos, started making the cloth masks last week, taking to social media to spread the word.
The movement of mask making in Osoyoos and Oliver sprung up using social media and word of mouth, said Amos, who has gotten orders from all over the Okanagan Valley. But her biggest order came in last week from a local woman involved with charities on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. They were looking for masks, and asked how many Amos could make.
“And I go, well I don’t know, how many do you want? She goes, could we start at 200?” said Amos.
At that time, Amos said, she was still sewing the masks, but this was too much for her alone. “That was the order that triggered me looking for people to help me,” said Amos. “I’m not a factory.”
She took to Facebook to spread the word among friends and the community. Not too much later, she got a phone call from a woman in Surrey with a sewing business offering to make all 200 and deliver them to the Downtown Eastside.
“It’s just been one hand helping another hand who’s helping another hand. It’s amazing,” said Amos.
Since then, Amos has been taking orders from anyone who asks. She’s even helped with supplies for scrub bags for a Penticton Care Home, gathering donations of bolts of cloth from the community. Using social media and word of mouth, Amos has gathered together eleven women who have taken over production of the masks, producing orders for RCMP officers, Shoppers Drugmart cashiers and more masks for the homeless on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Amos has moved into an organizational role,coordinating sewers, supplies and mask deliveries. This, she says, has turned into a time consuming role that prevents her from sewing the masks herself. She feels guilty for not doing the sewing herself anymore, but feels like she’s better suited to this position.
“I’m not always considered to be a good worker bee, but I’m a really good organizer,” Amos laughed, saying that she spends multiple hours a day networking on social media to gather donations of supplies and more sewers.
“It’s not about how many I need, it’s like one brick at a time,” said Amos. “It’s one mask at a time and one person at a time and that’s kind of the way I’m doing it.”
And her way of doing it seems to be working. Amos’ network keeps growing with more and more orders coming in, and that’s just her efforts. Amos isn’t the only one making masks in the community. She got started after seeing an old school mate’s call for help to sew masks on Facebook. Amos answered the call by Oliver resident Paula Tavers-Martins, making some masks for her and then realizing that she could field some orders on her own.
“She’s actually sewing though, she’s better at that than I am. I’m an organizer,” said Amos. “We’re just doing what we do best. I’m organizing, she’s sewing.”
The sewing will continue as long as the supplies and sewers keep coming forward, said Amos. So far, there’s been no shortage of women contacting her to help with any number of masks.
“It’s really cool. I’m enjoying it,” said Amos. “Who would have thought that a practically ancient and dying art of sewing is so needed today. It’s so important that we can do something like this. I’m just so proud of these women. I call them warriors, they’re all mask warriors.”
