Former Camosun College student Ellen Young models one of the face masks she’s made during the COVID-19 crisis (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a pay-what-you-can\u2014or if-you-can\u2014model, and I\u2019m happy to give them out for free,\u201d she says. \u201cThe thing with price, it\u2019s a little tricky. There\u2019s the time and materials that I put into it, which cost money, and it\u2019s a lot of work on my part. However, I also want to make these masks accessible, so it\u2019s a balancing act.\u201d<\/p>\n
If she approached it from a profit point of view, Young says each mask would sell for $15 to $25, but \u201cthat\u2019s not very accessible for many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not unreasonable to pay that much if you want to support the artist that\u2019s making these.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another complication is larger companies making masks, which Young says makes mask-making tough for locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can mass-produce it and sell it for a lot less,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m very opinionated on that. For me, I\u2019m doing it by donation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young\u2014who can also do bulk orders of 20 and over for businesses\u2014wants people to understand the point of masks. They are an additional step in the protection of others, she says (the first major steps are physical distancing and hand washing). Young says she thinks it would help tremendously if everyone in the community wore a mask, but it\u2019s also really important to remember that masks are not recommended for everyone: children under two and people with breathing difficulties, for instance, are advised to not wear them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would much rather people be safe and not have the mask do more harm than good, just as long as the frequent hand washing and social distancing is still in place,\u201d she says, adding that if people are able to wear one, \u201cdefinitely go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I see people wearing masks or asking to buy masks, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s awesome that you want to help protect the community.\u2019 But at the same time, I also understand that that might not be very practical for other people,\u201d she says. \u201cWherever you stand\u2014whether you wear a mask or not\u2014it\u2019s always important to be understanding of other people who may choose the opposite of what you\u2019re choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you would like order a mask, contact Young at ellen@ellenyoung.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the provincial shutdown began in mid-March\u2014before wearing masks was widely recommended\u2014former Camosun Business Administration student and Camosun College Student Society Interurban director Ellen Young began sewing masks as an avenue to empowerment in turbulent times. \u201cWhen this whole thing started, I was feeling very down about it all,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was scary and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19575,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573\/revisions\/19575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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