Photos Courtesy of Ashlee Kunkel
Gettysburg 13-year olds Natalee Kunkel and Mirena Kahn are overwhelmed with so many orders for their homemade facemasks they have temporarily closed up their Facebook shop.
“We have over 1,000 orders, and the kids have only made about half of them,” said Natalee’s mother Ashlee Kunkel. “They have a lot of work.”
Ashlee Kunkel said after the girls were featured on a local TV station they got about 300 orders in a couple of hours. “We had to ask the news station to take it down,” she said.
Natalee and Mirena said they started a business after donating some masks to the hospital. “We have a lot of friends that wanted them,” they said.
The girls said they were using a basic design from a YouTube video that uses two pieces of fabric. “The masks help keep the virus from spreading. It’s better that people use the homemade ones than using up the masks made for the healthcare workers.”
“We get the material from Joanne Fabric in Hanover. The elastic is the biggest problem. You just can’t find it. We have to use cord and even rubber bands,” said Natalee and Mirena.
“They have a little too much business right now. We’re feeling a little over our heads,” said Ashlee Kunkel. “Two girls making over 1,000 masks while they’re trying to do school — I don’t know how we’re going to keep maintaining it.”
“Once we get through all of the masks we can share the link to the store again,” said Ashlee Kunkel.
Ashlee said both of the girls’ moms are helping. “Milena’s mom has been cutting all the fabric and I’ve been doing the clerical work. I sent probably 500 emails yesterday,” said Ashlee Kunkel.
The girls said they have sent masks to many states on the east coast as well as California. “People can choose from a variety of designs, but the most popular is the Penn State logo,” they said.
“They’ve been doing great. There’s some good lessons to be learned,” said Ashlee Kunkel. “Saturday they both worked about 10 hours.”
“Some days it gets a bit boring. We’re really tired,” said Natalee and Mirena.
Charles (Chuck) Stangor is Gettysburg Connection's Owner, Publisher, and Editor in Chief. I would like to hear from you. Please contact me at cstangor@gettysburgconnection.org.