Friends team up to help create masks
AGLASGOW leadership coach is helping to deliver more than 10,000 masks to charities and good causes across the UK during the Covid-19 crisis.
Lindsay Paterson, a Strathclyde University graduate from Bearsden, teamed up with long-term friend Lynn Mackie to launch Free Masketeers.
Lynn runs a high end hospitality uniform business creating garments for restaurants, hotels and shops, including luxury hotel group Four Seasons and upmarket department store Fortnum and Mason.
The two women have set up a company which designs bespoke masks for businesses using leftover fabric from hotel uniforms and NHS scrubs, while supporting charities nationwide.
For every 100 masks ordered, 20 masks are donated to charities which need them the most.
So far, masks have been delivered to charities helping the homeless, care homes, community food delivery services, food banks and homes for veterans.
Lindsay and Lynn, who is from Edinburgh, have been firm friends for many years and, aware that many businesses are preparing for staff to return to work following the lifting of lockdown restrictions, put their heads together to see if they could help and support a range of good causes at the same time.
“With Lynn’s strong reputation in the hospitality sector and my knowledge and contacts in NGOs and charities, we decided to see if we could create a social impact model which serves the needs of two communities at this difficult time,” said Lindsay, who is now based in London.
Lynn added: “We quickly realised through our initial efforts that the production of uniforms and scrubs creates waste fabric and off-cuts. “We saw that we can use this fabric to create simple but effective masks.”
Now the two women are calling on companies considering returning to get in touch.
“We are calling initially on the hospitality industry and businesses that are now considering returning to the office, to support their own people while supporting others at the same time.,” added Lynn.
“Good protection is essential everyone right now.”
Lindsay initially moved to London to work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, running a programme to help the countries of Central and Eastern Europe join the European Union.
She now runs consultancy.
She added: “We are very proud to be able to offer a solution which meets the needs of both businesses and charities alike and hope that employers will get behind us.”
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