Masks Donated to Meals on Wheels

Good news of another strong partnership between United Ways across the country.  Earlier this year, the United Way of North Central Mass (UWNCM) was approached by one of their corporate community partners to help with a philanthropic initiative during COVID-19. Their partner, AIS, is an office furniture manufacturer located in Leominster, MA. They have been active in United Way programs during the past several years and are highly committed to community service. AIS has been giving back to the communities it serves for over 30 years. Learn more here. AIS started a program called Sew the Masks in the Spring of 2020 with the goal of making and donating a million high quality and reusable facemasks to first responders, non-profit organizations and those in need. 
They retrofitted one of the seating lines in their factory into a facemask production area and then reached out to community sewers (endearingly called “Rosies” after the WWII icon, Rosie the Riveter) to help with producing facemasks.  Through AIS’s in-house seamstresses and over 1000 community sewers in 45 states, AIS has donated over 200,000 facemasks to essential workers, schools, non-profits, and individuals in need. In late October, they provided Massachusetts polling workers in 267 towns across the state with 26,000 facemasks to be used on or before Election Day. In early November, they donated almost 5000 masks to polling workers in Washington, D.C.

The Grove City Area United way was able to secure 200 of these wonderful masks.  They are very high quality, reusable masks that we made available to any of our grant funded organizations that may need them or want to pass them on to their clients and staff. Pictured are Roger Flynn, GCAUW Board Member and Jeannie Leo, Meals on Wheels Coordinator.  (February, 2021)