A new look into your reusable facemasks

Most people procured a high number of reusable cloth masks as we navigated through this past year, and one woman is preventing this plethora of reusable face masks from ending up in Nevada’s landfills. Cami Rowe is working to collect cloth masks and turn them into quilts for Reno’s homeless population. 

Cami Rowe wanted to find a way to prevent these cloth masks from ending up in a landfill while also helping those in need within her community, this is how she came up with the idea of using reusable masks to make quilts for those who will need them this winter. For Rowe, the COVID-19 pandemic was a wakeup call to the things in her life that are important, as well as for helping others in need. What drives Rowe to do this project is getting to spend time with her family while providing a much-needed item to her community. 

Her goal is to collect as many masks as possible, so that she can keep thousands of masks out of landfills and provide warmth for as many people as she can this coming winter. So far, Rowe has kept over 6000 masks out of Nevada’s landfills, and this will provide for 60 quilts this winter. The process for making these quilts is to collect cloth masks at participating businesses, hospital-grade sanitize them, then cut the masks into uniform squares to form the quilts. 

Through quilt making with cloth masks Rowe wants the Reno community, “to always try and think of how one can help others in need, and to always strive to be a better earthling by caring for the planet we all live on!” If you want to support Cami Rowe you can donate masks or quilting materials to any of the businesses mentioned below; she is also looking for anyone with a basic knowledge of quilting and sewing to help her efforts.   

The local businesses that have collection stations are:  

If you would like to contact Cami Rowe please email her at: west_cami@yahoo.com