Phillips Student Provides Thousands Of Masks To Homeless Shelters

ANDOVER, MA — A Philips Andover student along with friends at five other area boarding schools has provided thousands of masks to homeless shelters across Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Through the Mariposa Mask Initiative, the students have made, purchased and received donations of over 2,000 masks and then donated them to homeless shelters around their schools, including Boston and Merrimack Valley area shelters, like Lowell Transitional Living Center, Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence in Boston and Lazarus House.

Elina Choi, the Philips student, said she and her friends from middle school have stayed in touch even as they've gone to six different high schools in the state and Connecticut, and when the coronavirus outbreak began, they wanted to do something.

"This all started over a Group FaceTime just catching up when someone brought up the hashtag #stayhome and asked, but what if you can't stay home?" Choi asked. "What if you don't have a place to stay?"

Choi is Korean and said masks are more available in her hometown, Seoul.

"I knew that cotton reusable masks were definitely going to be accessible in Seoul, with the medical mask supply starting to stabilize," she said. "Masks have always been a part of Seoul spring life, because of the smog, pollution, and fashion trends. We also knew that reusable masks were going to be more convenient and necessary for the homeless, rather than one-use medical masks. "

The group created a fundraiser that has raised over $11,000 and ramped up quickly.

"After flying back home to Seoul from Boston, I was determined to get things going in 3 days. I set up a GoFundMe, Instagram, contacted 60 fabric and mask manufactures, ordered masks from 30 online retailers, hand checked them and picked out the suitable ones, called shelters, sketched and then digitally designed a logo within those 3 days," Choi said.

She noted that the fact that she was in Korea while other members of the team are in the United States has actually helped them work.

"Our team basically runs 24/7," she said.

The team has plans to ramp up over the summer.

"With summer vacation giving us more time to work on our initiative and with our newfound knowledge of the severe lack of safe masks for kids within shelters, we are expanding our initiative to also provide masks for orphanages across MA and CT," Choi said. "We will still continue our efforts with homeless shelters, but we feel really passionate about providing safe masks for children who do not have the resources to find some."

The GoFundMe is available here.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.