A Saint John-based group of volunteers has collected 250 masks for some of the city’s most vulnerable — in one week.

Masks in Need is a coalition of community members focused on getting homemade masks to members of the city’s shelter system during the coronavirus pandemic.

The masks can be helpful for recipients “if they’re going to go to the soup kitchen or they’re living together and they find it hard to distance,” said the group’s founder, Pam Pastirik.

Pastirik is a registered nurse who also teaches at the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John campus.

She saw the downtime created by the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to put idle hands to work.

“All of the masks are sewn with love and care and a little bit of whimsy,” says Cathy Connolly, a member of Masks in Need.

“I think it’s an opportunity to show others that you do care and it will become a comfort measure as we go forward.”

The group got together in the University Avenue parking lot of Jean Coutu on Sunday, hosting a drop-off for completed masks and a material swap to get fabric and elastics into the hands of sewers.