Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

In July, the Pittsburgh Masque Project leadership group decided to increase our monthly allotment to students from 2 masks per month to 4 masks per month. We were motivated by the concerns everyone has about back to school. One small support we can offer is providing enough masks for students to deal with lost masks, dirty masks, etc.  We want to help students, educators, and families navigate this difficult time any way we can.

As a reminder, we focus on connecting the trans and queer (LGBTQIA+) community with face masks. We distribute monthly, providing 2 masks per person for each enrolled household. We mail some. We keep a list of vendors who are friendly and affirming. We are all volunteers.

We asked sewists to focus on children’s masks and sought out some bulk donors. We have a commitment from our partner Global Links for a one time delivery of these size masks toward the end of August – and we are very grateful.

Another donor had promised us 80 student masks, some adult masks, ziploc bags, brown paper bags, etc this week.

Unfortunately, they opted not to follow through on that commitment. Tonight I received an email informing me of that decision. I’m not going to give into the details of our conversation except to say that we firmly required all donors/sewists/volunteers to center the trans community and that includes the dignity and autonomy of each trans person to make their own decisions. We will not compromise that value for any donation.

Soooo … we need children’s masks lickety split to make up for that lost donation. We do not have the funds to buy the masks over the counter. Our crowdfund is doing well, but we will not access those funds until September at best.

Help?

You can purchase masks at Target and drop-them or have them delivered to my house (contact me for my address)  You can purchase them at any vendor, of course. We also have drop offs in Beechview and Shadyside.

You can Paypal @PghLesbian

You can Venmo @PghLesbian

You can Ca$hApp @Pghlesbian

We need 80 masks by the end of the week, assorted youth sizes. We also need bags now, as well.

We do have an Amazon wishlist where I put some youth masks and the other items we lost with this cancelled donation.

Please help us fill this gap. We can’t wait until the end of the month.