Gunbarrel business eQuilter supports COVID-19 mask-making efforts

On March 5, 2020, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's public health laboratory confirmed the first presumptive positive COVID-19 test result in Colorado.

What followed is well known to Coloradans, but looking back to March, there are some behind-the-scenes heroes from the early months of the pandemic who deserve some added thanks, namely the volunteers and organizations who helped support early mask-making endeavors in local communities.

When COVID-19 cases were first on the rise, demand quickly outran supply for masks and other PPE, especially for healthcare workers, first responders and essential front line workers.

Later that month, the Volunteer Engagement and Donations management staff under the Boulder County Emergency Operations started the Boulder County Mask Project to meet the rising need for masks.

Boulder County Community Services estimates that since the project began, volunteers have donated more than 6,000 hours totaling $188,500 in contributions. A huge part of the program's success can be attributed to Gunbarrel business, eQuilter, owned and operated by Luana and Paul Rubin.

The Rubins are no stranger to charitable work. Since eQuilter's inception in 1999, it has contributed to charitable organizations around the world, donating 2% of all sales. To date, they have raised over $1.7 million for charity.

When the needs for masks in Boulder County increased drastically in the spring, Luana Rubin said they saw a large need in the community that eQuilter was able to fill.

"At the beginning of the pandemic, it was a really crazy time. Everyone was trying to figure out how they were going to respond and how bad the pandemic was going to be," she said.

Near the start of the pandemic, eQuilter was granted special permission from the governor's office to stay open as an essential business. During a time when a lot of other fabric stores and quilt stores around the country had completely shut down, eQuilter's online business became an important source of fabric for people around the nation sewing masks for their communities.

Luana Rubin, eager to find ways to help locally, got in touch with the Boulder Emergency Task Force.

"At the time, we had connected with a Facebook group called the Boulder Mask Makers, and we were giving away tons of fabric every day," she said.

The eQuilter warehouse set up a secure bin outside the building's front door and filled it with fabric and elastic every morning. By the end of the day, the bin would be completely empty, taken by volunteers sewing masks for the community.

"So in the midst of that, we did connect with the Boulder County Emergency Task Force, and their project was so big that I said, don't come to the bin in front, let me just put together boxes of fabric to give to you," said Rubin. That fabric ultimately helped the volunteers of the Boulder County Mask Project sew over 19,000 masks.

"Our goal is to give as much fabric as possible to those who are making masks. And as long as it's being done to give away, to help people in need, to help front line workers, not just medical workers, but all those people who are out there having to interact with the public, we're really thrilled to be able to donate fabric and elastic," she said.

When asked how many masks she thought had been made from donated fabric, Rubin said, "That's hard to answer. It's obviously thousands of yards of fabric and elastic. We didn't really keep track, we just kept putting it out there as there was such a desperate need in the community." She was unsure of an exact number, but estimated somewhere in the range of 50,000 masks had been made.

In addition to working with the Boulder Mask Makers and the BCMP, Rubin said eQuilter also helped provide masks to the State Department and to Boulder Community Health.

"The State Department, through the governor's office, would come and pick up 300 masks each week. I would go over and drop off boxes of several hundred masks, every week, to the hospital," Rubin said.

Much of the credit goes to the group of volunteers who sewed the masks, who Rubin called the "mask fairies."

"There are still a few of them whom we haven't identified. There were people who would come, take fabric, go home, make masks, and then come and leave them in the drop-off bin, and never identify themselves," she said.

Since March 21, the BCMP alone has delivered 19,320 homemade cloth masks to over 70 local organizations, specifically supporting marginalized, high-risk community members during the pandemic. Over 84 people volunteered their time to create the handmade masks for children, youth, and adults.

For Rubin and the rest of the eQuilter staff, this very important local effort was just one part of a much bigger job to fulfill customer orders around the nation.

"We had customers all over the country who were making surgical gowns and surgical caps, not just the masks. So we had a huge demand. All of this was going on at the same time. It was absolute madness. I was working 75 hours a week. Restocking fabric was really difficult. Our buyers were working overtime. Everybody was working overtime at the warehouse," said Rubin, who compared the feeling of those months to a war-time effort.

eQuilter normally employs around 24 people, but its staffing to 38 people during the height of the pandemic. There are currently around 34 full-time employees, plus the Rubins.

"That was the other half of what was going on here, keeping our business open so that we could supply all the people who desperately needed these supplies," said Rubin.

At present, Rubin said the pandemic-related need has slowed although it is still a significant portion of eQuilter's business. "That part of our business is up for sure, but it's not as crazy as it was early in the year. Everybody knew that this was a special moment in time, and people needed these supplies, and we were going to do our best to help," she said.

On a weekend when Rubin would normally be attending the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas, an annual event that regularly draws upwards of 60,000 people, she said the important thing this year is that all her employees and their families are safe and well.

"Our staff has just been incredible through all this. We've been observing all the safety protocols very strictly since March. We just got slammed with a tsunami wave of people who were buying for the pandemic. Many of our staff gave up their weekends or worked late into the night. We have a great team who stepped up to the challenge," said Rubin.