Welcome to our first blog post for Face Mask Covering.  We thank you for stopping by.  

We are thankful to be here in 2021 after going through the most devastating year of 2020 alongside with the rest of world as we faced COVID-19 together. This one year alone has changed our way of life. Sadly, COVID-19 took so many precious lives, and for those infected with the virus, it is still unclear today what health challenges each person may later face. Therefore, we all must remember to live each day to the fullest.

As a New Yorker, I have been on ground zero for two historic events. The first was in 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorist and in 2020 when NYC became an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Back in 2001, we didn't know that the first-responders inhaling the air around the fallen towers would lead to cancer and early deaths. Today, we don't know what health challenges each infected person of COVID-19 will face later in life but we sincerely do wish them all well. 

I had knowledge of COVID-19 as early as January 2020. At that time, I had been following the nearly year-long Hong Kong protest against the Fugitive Offenders Bill that was introduced in Feb 2019. The bill was later withdrawn in September 2019 but this didn't end the protest. By now, the protesters had gained strength in numbers and made greater demands that the Hong Kong government would not concede to. This created riot and destruction to businesses and city properties with no end in sight until early January 2020 when the spread of COVID-19 from China into Hong Kong quickly forced the protesters to dissipate when neither rubber bullets, tear gas, nor police beating could stop them before. 

As early as March 1, 2020 before there was even a nationwide stay-at-home order, I started making face masks at home for all my family and friends after hearing of growing number of cases around the world. As a person with an auto-immune condition, I've been wearing face masks for years to filter out pollutants in the air so I knew wearing masks would offer protection even before Dr. Anthony Fauci ever suggested wearing them. 

When early cases were detected in the United States, I was concerned but President Trump assured the American people in 3 separate press conferences during the month of February 2020 that we had nothing to worry about. He assured us that COVID-19 would go away when the weather warms up but sadly it spread nationwide and claimed untold number of lives to date. I personally know 3 people who died of COVID-19 and another friend of mine got deathly ill and fortunately recovered. It astounds me that people called this a hoax in the early months as NYC suffered the greatest loss of life. Even today, people are still going to their graves in denial.

I knew from history and from my own health challenges that wearing a mask would provide protection just as it had during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the influenza pandemic of 1918 so I started making masks from home for my family and friends. This turned into a small wholesale business when the demand for face masks grew. I spent all my time cutting all the fabric layers of the masks and sewing them together to sell the next day to local retail stores in my area but there was a limit to how many masks I could make each day.

At times, fabrics and supplies were scarce because everyone with sewing machines were buying the same supplies to make masks themselves to sell. Then late last year, I found a manufacturer who could make the masks for me but I would have to buy high volumes of each fabric color or pattern. Therefore I chose the most popular solid colors that I could easily sell rather than fabric with colorful patterns. This was still far better than constantly looking for fabrics to buy and oftentimes the fabric patterns were discontinued so I couldn't fulfill orders of the same fabric pattern when the stores request them.

Now that I have opened my own online store, I'm happy to make our face masks and supplies available online to a greater market outside of my local area. I also plan to source new fabrics and start making face masks from home again to offer new pattern prints, so please be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and we'll let you know when we have new inventory available. Meanwhile we carry all the top selling colors in our store right now.

The year 2020 was a life-changing year for all of us and wearing a mask had  become a way of life for a while, but as more and more people get vaccinated, face mask may no longer be needed but everyone should still stay vigilant about doing the right thing for oneself. I don't think we're totally out of the woods yet as people are still dying everyday from COVID-19 but thankfully the numbers are declining.  All I can say is to make wise decisions as your life literally depends on it. 

 
Stay tuned for why I voluntarily wore a face mask long before COVID-19 ever came into existence.  See you in the next blog post.