Face mask donations poured into Minnesota fire stations Saturday as part of a statewide face mask drive announced last week by Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. The drive was geared toward donating face masks to congregate care facilities in the battle against COVID-19.
The homemade mask drive encouraged Minnesotans to create face masks during the week and then drop them off at one of the 775 fire stations across the state.
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St. Paul Fire said on Saturday they collected 7,348 handmade face masks across their 15 fire stations.
Fire department spokesman Roy Mokosso said donations ranged from a handful of masks to some people donating over 100 handmade masks at a time.
"One of the things we had already done is reach out to the congregate care facilities in St. Paul to see what their needs were," Mokosso said. "As the donations were coming in, we were pulling 50, 100, or whatever the requested number was to make same-day deliveries to those facilities."
In researching what the need was, Mokosso said some facilities reported not having any face masks.
"They had residents who had the skills to make masks and were doing so to help out," he said. "Other facilities said they absolutely needed more face masks and put in a request."
With the Saturday's turnout in St. Paul, the fire department will be able to fulfill every request they received and any additional requests that come in.
"We are going to work with our community partners to distribute any extra face masks we have," Mokosso said.
If you need help making a face mask, Hennepin County Medical Center has provided a pattern.
