Performance artist and comedian Kristina founded The Auntie Sewing Squad on March 24, 2020 as a casual effort to connect with other friends sewing homemade masks for essential workers due to the Federal Government’s failure to prepare them with personal protective equipment. Originally intended as a three week stopgap, the Auntie Sewing Squad is still sewing and has since exploded into a network of hundreds of active Aunties across the United States who have shipped tens of thousands of masks to vulnerable communities across the North American continent.
“Generosity is giving to connect and be human,and not for anything in return.”
The Auntie Sewing Squad is a national collective of volunteers of all genders who have turned our living rooms into “sweatshops” because of the failure of the Federal Government to provide proper PPE to essential workers and vulnerable communities. Family members, Aunties and Uncles, of the collective and non-binary volunteers give time and labor to make masks to stop the spread of COVID-19, specifically in the most vulnerable of communities with no access to masks. They believe in a system of community care and having a direct connection to their recipients. The collective share resources on patterns, fabric and elastic. They pride their origins as a mostly WOC and QTNB* group that celebrates the ability of all our Aunties to rise up and become the real leaders in this crisis.
