Oxford Quilty Pleasures has Raised Over $22,000

Tuesday, 28 July 2020 16:30

The Oxford County Quilty Pleasures Facebook group has now raised over $22,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oxford County and Ingamo Homes.

OXFORD COUNTY - The Oxford County Quilty Pleasures Facebook group has now raised over $22,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oxford County and Ingamo Homes.

Since the pandemic started the group of volunteers has made thousands of masks. They started out making them for front line workers and have grown to include making them to the general public. Kathy Killaire started the group with her friend Kelly Cowell. Killaire explains how they were able to make all of these masks at no cost to the public.

"My Mother in Law passed away last year and I inherited a large amount of fabric, so when people ask, how can you do this for free, it is because all of this fabric came from her. Kelly who started this with me also got a lot of fabric donated to her in a similar way. So we were able to make the masks without any costs to us. There is a place in Exeter, when things closed down, they started making ear elastic and not charging and they donated 10,000 feet of ear elastic to us."

Killaire says they didn't charge any money for the masks.

"So when we started off, we really could do it for free but we found people wanted to give, we didn't at that point need fabric but we saw people wanted to give so we thought, ok, let's start helping Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oxford County and when we got $5,000 for BBBS, we thought ok, let's share this and we decided to help Ingamo Homes, which is a home a for abused women and children in Woodstock."

Killaire says she started with a goal to raise $1,000 and to date they have brought in over $22,000 for BBBS and Ingamo Homes.

At one point they had over 40 sewers making masks. Some have decided to take the summer off, however they still have a handful of Quilters going strong. Killaire still has lot's of fabric left and has set a new goal of raising $25,000.

If you need a mask you can reach out on their Facebook Page.