A St. Albert fashion outlet got some Internet kudos this week for helping St. Albert Public schools out of a mask-related jam.
St. Albert Public Schools sent out a tweet Aug. 30 thanking Laura Oladokun of St. Albert’s Sweet Boutique for coming up with 300 child-sized reusable masks for area schools as they reopened Aug. 31.
While the province said that it had shipped hand sanitizer, thermometers, face shields, and some 1.6 million reusable masks to all Alberta schools as of Aug. 28, Superintendent Krimsen Sumners said that was not the case for St. Albert Public – none of the 17,500 masks the board expected to have for the first day of school had materialized by Aug. 29. With schools set to reopen Aug. 31, that was a problem.
“We knew we had enough disposable masks to get through the first couple of days if we had to, but we didn’t have anything for our littles,” Sumners said, referring to small children.
Administration started calling local providers to see if anyone had the 300 child-sized masks they needed, Sumners said. (They didn’t need 17,500, as they assumed most students would be coming to school with masks.) One of those providers was Sweet Boutique.
Our deep thanks go to Laura and her team at Sweet Boutique. They’ve jumped in to help us ensure our elementary schools have a supply of child-sized reusable masks. We are fortunate to have such great local businesses who support our community. pic.twitter.com/oAHPdYcDgA
— St. Albert Public (@StAlbertPublic) August 30, 2020
Oladokun said she and her staff have been selling and fitting masks for months, and had sold about 10,000 in August alone.
“We call it Mask-A-Palooza,” she joked, adding she’s sold enough masks to mostly offset her losses from the three months her store was closed during the pandemic.
Oladokun said she was shocked when the district called her Saturday to ask about masks.
“I was relying on the government to be providing the masks, and to find out our public school district had received none of them and that the public school board out of their own money is having to come to a local business to source (them) was really shocking for me,” she said.
“I’m just really glad we had them on hand and were able to spare them.”
Oladokun said she and her staff had the masks ready to go in two hours, and sold them to the board at their regular price.
The masks turned out to be not immediately necessary, as the ones from the province showed up at district office on Sunday Aug. 30.
In an email, Alberta Municipal Affairs press secretary Tim Gerwing said that while most of the province’s masks reached schools on Friday, some didn’t arrive until the weekend due to a backlog at the trucking company. All schools got their protective gear in time for the start of school Monday.
Sumners said administration got the government masks out to schools in time for classes Aug. 31. The Sweet Boutique masks would be distributed as needed later in the year.
Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools superintendent Clint Moroziuk said area Catholic schools also received their masks from the province on Sunday.
Sturgeon Public Schools received their masks and other protective gear from the province Aug. 28, superintendent Mary Lynne Campbell said in an email.
