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Writer's pictureJohn Faas

Saving our small Dayton business one mask at a time.

Updated: May 17, 2020


Randomly, on Saturday, April 4, 2020, I decided to start making face masks out of my little costume shop above MJ's on Jefferson in downtown Dayton, Ohio. It wasn't a hard conclusion to arrive at because we certainly had everything already in stock to produce masks... Plenty of cotton costume fabrics, elastic bands, thread, machines, you name it! I never intended to make any real money doing this. I thought that a few friends and family would want or need masks and maybe we would make a few to give away. No big deal... Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong! Within one day we had nearly 100 orders and absolutely NO inventory of premade masks... HOLY COW, right?! Along with my husband Mike, we sewed that first night until nearly 2 am and were right back to it at 9 am the next morning. In the first two weeks, we were flooded with so many requests that we were spending 12 - 14 hours a day in the shop sewing. It was nuts. Now, 4 weeks into being mask-makers, we've sewn over 4,000 masks! Eventually, we realized we needed to hire more help to meet demand, and before we even knew it we had created an entirely new facet to our company, John Faas Designs | Act 2 Costumes. My dearest friend, Allison Cox said that my memoir should be entitled "Surprise! I started a company today!" On a side note, that's even more humorous because Allison manages all of the digital back-end details of our whole operation. So... Yes. Surprise indeed! Ha!

Theatrical productions and the months leading up to Halloween marks our busiest time of year, and I don't know about you, but I don't see theatres opening any time soon. We're also reading that it's more and more likely Halloween 2020 will be squelched as well due to this terrible pandemic. So, for now, we're going to keep making masks for anyone and everyone who wants or needs one! I extend my sincerest gratitude to each and every person who has purchased one of our masks. I can't express what this has meant to keep our small business dreams alive. I hope you're pleased with your masks! I hope you realize that many of those masks were made from fabrics that were originally intended for costumes that would hopefully grace a stage one day. Now you - our wonderful community - gets to wear them to protect yourselves and your loved ones, and we couldn't be happier to use our fabric to do so. Stay safe & stay healthy! Sincerely, John Faas Owner For more information or to order your masks visit us as www.act2costumes.com/facemasks




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