Randi McMyn’s eight- and 10-year-old kids joke about child labour, as they periodically toil along side their mother making cloth masks for the masses.
While they’re spending two hours or so a day helping Mom cut and sew masks, they’re more keen about spending that time out on the side of the street in front of their 216th Street home selling the $20 accessories.
Forrest and his younger sister Elodie have set up shop in their driveway with something similar to a lemonade stand, Randi explained.
But, as one of the signs they’ve drawn clearly stipulates, there’s no lemonade for sale.
Instead, they’re selling masks. And before anyone panics, Mom clarified they’ve set up an innovative system to ensure safety through social distancing.
Buyers can browse the selection of masks they have for sale, point to the one they want, then Elodie uses a hook and stick to pick it up and give the selected mask to the buyer. Meanwhile, her brother collects the cash with a makeshift “social distancing money bucket” affixed to the end of his hockey stick.
Mom initially undertook the mask making endeavour a few weeks ago, when she was off from work as an educational assistant with SD42 and she was casting about for things to do with her kids that would be meaningful.
A quilter at heart, Randi knew how to sew, had a sewing machine and serger, and an abundance of cotton squares she had accumulated when she took up quilting with her late friend – who at the time was going through chemotherapy.
“She’d love that we were doing this,” Randi said, noting the project started off simple enough – making and giving away some cloth masks to a few of her friends and family.
Soon others were asking for masks – and in a matter of days, they’d crafted a hundred and given them away for free.
That’s when a few friends in the health care profession offered advise on tweaking the design – to make it even safer – and soon Randi and the kids ramped up production and began selling them to more friends and lots of complete strangers.
For now, mask making feels like it’s taken over her life – the kids intermittently jumping in for a few minutes here and there throughout the day to help.
“Now, I’m just cutting as fast as I can, trying to keep up,” Mom said, noting the kids want to keep going as long as there is a demand.
“Honestly, it has been overwhelming” at times, Randi admitted. But she’s also enjoyed the chance to teach her kids how to sew (something she’d talked about doing for years – pre-COVID).
And she loves that it’s giving all of them a chance to work together on something and to help make a positive difference in the world.
Randi has been getting orders via text and Facebook, as well as email (mcmyn@telus.net) and spending upwards of 12 hours daily during which she’s able to craft as many as 20 cloth masks.
Set up with work stations on her kitchen and dining room tables, plus in a small craft area, their home seems overrun with fabric, elastic, and equipment.
But it’s not a forever project, she said, optimistic that life for all families – including hers – will one day soon return to normal.
In the meantime, if the pace continues as it has been, she expects they’ll raising a little coin from the undertaking.
While the McMyns are not sure yet what they’re going to use the profit for – knowing some of it will be going back into replenishes Randi’s stock of material– Mom said they have pondered a possible trip together once the COVID crisis is over.
