MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – First Presbyterian teamed up with local artist Elisha Rush to giveaway 156 masks on Friday from 1-7 p.m.
The cloth masks were in all sizes, for all ages and in many different designs. Rush, a digital artist, said she was thankful for the chance to collaborate with the church and their work promoting the giveaway because masks are an important part of combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve definitely seen a lot of need in our community for free and accessible masks,” Rush said. “I definitely feel like everybody needs multiple masks and they’re just sometimes a little hard to get or a little expensive especially if you’re trying to outfit a whole family so I just figured why not just give them away. I have the ability, so I wrangled in some other crafters and volunteers and some other people who wanted to help out. We got together a bunch of masks just to give away for free.”
Rush said she has done other mask giveaways in the past, partnering up with local businesses and doing pop-up stands. She said that she did her first collaboration with a local business in front of Retro-tique on Walnut St. and gave away more than 150 masks. Then she moved on to a pop-up on the WVU Evansdale campus in front of Pizza Al’s, where she gave away roughly 90 masks.
She said she is happy to be giving away masks, helping those in need and doing her part to limit the spread of the pandemic. She added that all that she has done would not be possible without the help of many others.
“I just want to thank everybody who has helped to do this so far,” Rush said. “This is definitely not a single woman effort, it’s taken a lot of love and care and time form a lot of various people, so I just want to thank everybody again who has helped me with this process.”
