Design For Social Impact: Community action COVID-19

THE STORY

When Covid19 broke, here, in Europe, and we went into lockdown the operation of our business came to a screeching halt. A lot was at stake. We were in shock and disbelief. After a moment of composure. And, finally, acknowledgement and acceptance of the circumstances, we reframed the situation and changed our perspective.

At the beginining of March, just after the shutdown started, a dear friend, who lives in our community came with deep concerns. And she asked if we could help make masks to fight spread of the virus. During that period people were reluctant to wear them, but her instincts were right. And we agreed. The virus was spreading in part, because people were unwittingly passing it on. We decided to get involved. We created a pattern, and step by step instructions, and cut fabrics. We created kits, so neighbors could cooperate in making masks, because we had limited resources and needed help to sew. Being the designers we are this mask making KIT turned into something a bit more stylish. We hashed # MODEMASKPROJECT to sum up our efforts and started giving these kits out to neighbors and friends in our community.

More and more people began asking if we could sew them ourselves, and that’s when demand rapidly increased. Through word-of-mouth things picked up. In the weeks that followed we made over 500 masks, and gave away a countless number of kits, working day and night to keep up. The project has been a phenomenon for us. We print each envelope, package each mask ourselves, and delivers them, locally, by bike. We continue to produce them and interest and further demand grows.

We applaud everyone making these masks. Whether it’s ours, their own, or someone else. We’re all in this together. The more people make, the more people have, the more people wear them. Our purpose in giving away mask making kits is to help the community.

I am American, and with family and friends back in the states, we extended our efforts, in a sort of global-local action, sending our masks and kits, so they could also participate. And that’s been really cool.

Mask making has turned into a worldwide thing now and we are very proud to have our part with our #MODEMASKPROJECT.

Check out what we’re doing and support our efforts:
www.m-qc.com

Please pass it on. And be well. If you've purchased a mask, downloaded our patterns and instructions online, or recieved a free kit and sewn one yourself, please take a pic and post it with our hashtag #MODEMASKPROJECT to amplify the message