 Masks of Love is now a member of the Asheville Grown Business Alliance! If you have a Go Local card you can use the coupon code in the directory and save 20% on orders of $30 or more. With the card you can also enjoy special offers from 540 other local independent businesses while supporting our public schools!   Bees, butterflies, chickens and unicorns! I'm am having fun buying new mask fabrics! Are you sick of your masks? Lost a few? Bring some fresh garden energy in with these. In my neighborhood daffodils are poking their heads up and magnolias are budding. Spring is coming. We will get through this difficult time.  A quick note to say I put all the inventory in the mask shop. Everything I've got - fitted, pleated, kids, and filters - is in there now. I changed some prices (lower), added some more info (the elastic style is noted in every item now so you don't have to guess). I even added SEO tags (shot in the dark but what the heck).
I finished a custom mask order last week for Squarepeg Construction. Image420 silk screened the logo and I sewed the 4 coordinating fabrics into some stylish fitted masks. The customer was very happy with them. Find out how you can get branded masks for your company here. I just got some pretty new fabrics and will be whipping up more masks in the next two weeks. Chickens! Unicorns! Can't wait to show you. Be careful out there friends. That virus variant is scary contagious.  Hello friends,
This is Jen Murphy, one of the founders of Masks of Love. We started last March with a handful of people who didn't even know each other yet, joining forces to get as many face masks into local hands as we could, as fast as we could. The shortage was severe and the response incredible. With hundreds of volunteers, a powerful core group, and generous donations of money, materials, and skills, those initial efforts put well over 6000 masks into our community. I was the volunteer coordinator, fabric bundle-er, and website builder, among many hats. As the spring turned to summer we realized this pandemic wasn't going anywhere and the pace of demand was burning people out. In June we changed gears. With a team of 3 from the volunteer phase, Sara, Casey and Amy, the project was relaunched as an enterprise. The aim was to keep providing masks to people in Western NC while providing income to staff and sewers. This worked well for 6 months, with sales of more than 1500 masks, income for 10 people, and still providing close to 2000 donated masks, via the Buy 1/Give 1 model. Now we are changing gears again. As of January 1, the 2.0 team is retiring and handing it back to me. Sara, Casey and Amy have other jobs which picked up again over the summer and fall. They have been doing quite a juggling act to keep up. I am ready to take it on as a one woman show (plus sewing help), simplifying operations. The Buy 1/Give 1 will continue and hopefully expand. I am proud of all the places we've reached so far. I've been updating the website and store. I'm excited about the business orders coming in, including Curate Tapas Bar and Squarepeg Construction. And we have a new retailer - Southern States. Pick up your chicken scratch and a mask at the same time! Reach out on on the new For Businesses page for info on how you can get professional looking, locally made masks on your crew. I'm hoping 2021 will put us out of business with the vaccine, but meanwhile let's wash our hands and wear our masks! Jen Murphy Come visit us most Sunday afternoons this fall at the Haywood Common Market on Haywood Road in West Asheville. Great mask selection alongside happy people with dogs and kids in the sunshine, what's not to love? 507 Haywood Road, 11 am to 3 pm  We've invited several local artists to enhance our masks with their work. They have used paint, embroidery, screen printing, block printing and more. We are excited to introduce them: Becca Ward of Phuzzy Funk Meagan Morgan of Wild Indigo Sally Anne Morgan of Rat Bee Press Ami Pruett Michael Riesch of Cardboard Couch Haley Yeagar Claire Shadomy Wyatt Grant Cherry Mountain Tie-dye Asheville and these Blue Ridge Mountains are full of talented artists. We are happy to be able to pay them for their work in this difficult time. Support the arts AND stay well with Masks of Love! Masks of Love is thrilled to support Umoja Health, Wellness and Justice Collective with our next mask donation! Every mask purchased form masksoflovewnc.org will help provide a mask to Umoja during this time. Umoja Health, Wellness, and Justice Collective is a Nonprofit organization that was founded in Asheville NC in 2019 to address trauma, healing and resilience through creating a community of connections. To learn More about Umoja, check out our community outreach pag… See More
So thankful for the support of our local community that allowed us to donate masks to Umoja Health, Wellness, and Justice Collective!   So happy to be able to assist great organizations like the Asheville Sex Worker Outreach Project! There are so many people trying to protect out most vulnerable populations and it gives us hope during these trying times!
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Masks of Love WNCwas created in Western North Carolina in March 2020 as a response to our community shortage of PPE in the face of Covid 19. We created an all volunteer effort to get cloth masks into the hands of those that needed them most. Now, Masks of Love has grown into a business that is providing local jobs while staying committed to our mission of donating masks to our under-served neighbors. We have donated almost 10, 000 masks since we began. Learn more about our community partners here. Archives
December 2021
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