Joanne McQuarrie, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | [email protected]
Thousands of free masks received from the province have been distributed in Jasper over the last month and more were packaged recently to hand out for public use.
Greg Van Tighem, protective services director and fire chief, Municipality of Jasper, said they received 18,550 masks about a month ago. 15,000 have been given to the public so far.
A new shipment of 6,000 masks came in on July 13. Van Tighem, Kelly Dawson and other staff members worked to package the masks for distribution.
They're available at the Legion, TGP, Robinson's AG Foods, and the Servus Credit Union.
"The idea is to put masks in the hands of the public to keep our community safe," Van Tighem said, adding this initiative is in line with the municipality strongly recommending wearing masks in public.
It's important, he said, that "everybody follow the Alberta Health Service COVID guidelines.
"People need to realize they're not just doing it for themselves,” he said.
“There’s staff in stores and other members of the public [to consider]."
