By: Miriam Brown ’21
When Georgie Nahass ’20 learned how a friend from home was making masks to help fill a gap in the Coronavirus pandemic, he and his housemates Max Pil ’20, Hugh Alessi ’20, and Cat Gill ’20 joined the efforts by learning how to sew. The four have since made and given away around 90 masks, and they’re not done yet.
Nahass’s friend from home is a professional seamstress, so after they expressed interest in starting a small mask-making operation at their house in Colorado Springs, she sent them instructional sewing videos, along with a box of elastic and 400 pre-cut pieces of fabric. They then borrowed one sewing machine from their landlord and bought another online, borrowed an ironing board from their neighbor, and borrowed fabric-cutting equipment from Cathy Buckley, assistant director for community connections at Colorado College. In a day or two, they were in business.
“That was kind of the impetus behind it,” Nahass says. “You have so much time on your hands, you can learn to sew, which is a cool life skill, and you also get to make a difference in the community.”
With 90 masks, they were able to outfit the whole CC Sodexo custodial staff, some members of Campus Safety, a couple residential life coordinators, and some CC professors and alumni. The rest of the masks they plan to donate to a local hospital.
Now, the group is waiting for a new shipment of elastic to begin making more. Other CC students still living in Colorado Springs have since expressed interest in also making masks, so for the next round, the group hopes to sanitize and distribute materials to expand operations.
“We’re just going to keep making them until we leave I think,” Nahass says. “It’s a pretty low time commitment, and it’s a pretty easy way to help others.”
If you would like to donate elastic material, a sewing machine, or an ironing board to the group’s mask-making efforts, contact g_nahass@coloradocollege.edu
So proud of these kids and grateful for their time together at CC.