Maybe you’ve seen them around town, maybe you’re wearing one now.
Islander Julie Vik has sewed more than 350 cloth masks over the past couple of months as part of the COVID-19 effort. And she’s giving them away for free.
It was Vik’s sister that got her started on the project. “My sister who is a doctor bullied me,” says Vik. “She’s my older sister.”
“She sent me five to seven emails a day on different fabrics, different designs, different filter material,” laughs Vik. “She’s still sending me information on it!”
As her bed and breakfast is closed due to the pandemic, Vik agreed it was a good way to pitch in. She stitches 25 masks at a time, in an assembly line style, as she listens to internet radio, each batch taking about a day and a half. Vik had her own fabric and some from her mother that she’d stashed away and islanders have too contributed cloth to the cause.
Vik gives the masks away for free at the pharmacy, because, as she puts it, “Crisis capitalism sucks and we should all be doing something that we can do.”
“I don’t feel like it’s going out of my way,” she explains. “I enjoy it. I find it very meditative.
“We have a small enough community that we should be able to do stuff."
Vik recently received a Neighbourhood Small Grant from the B.I. Community Foundation to further fund her project.
