In mid-March, when 2017 U.S. champion Karen Chen left the Cornell University campus to quarantine with her family in Michigan amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, she arrived home to discover a self-described "mask factory" in the basement.
Chen's mother, Tseng, who makes her skating dresses, began making face coverings. With the help of Karen and her brother Jeffrey Chen, the 2020 U.S. junior ice dance silver medalist with partner Katarina Wolkofstin, the family donated them to local hospitals during the early days of the pandemic when personal protective equipment was in short supply.
With a lot of family living in Taiwan, the Chens paid close attention to the success Taiwan has had in slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Taiwan, which is strict about its citizens wearing face coverings, reported fewer than 10 deaths nationwide through July. With the virus still a great threat in the United States, an idea began to form in Karen's mind:
What if we did something about this?
In early July, the
"We Wear Masks" campaign was born.
With a
website, a
Facebook and an
Instagram account, the campaign's mission is to encourage people who wear face coverings to speak up about their experiences, empowering them in their decision and creating a community.
"Our goal is to convince people who strongly believe that they have the right to not wear masks to wear masks," Karen said. "It should be a more positive campaign that focuses on making [masks] more fun and something that's more encouraging."
With the hashtag
#WearMaskWhile, people are encouraged to post creative photos of themselves wearing their face coverings, whether it be while they're hiking or doing yoga or figure skating.
"I saw the other day, I think there was somebody on a boat dancing," Karen said. "So there's been some really cool posts, and I'm really excited to see what the future has for this hashtag."
Part of Karen's thought process was to turn wearing a face covering into a more enjoyable experience, making it a challenge rather than a chore.
"Wearing masks, even if you have a super cool mask or whatnot, it's not fun," Karen said. "And sometimes it's hard to think about the bigger picture and knowing like, OK, me putting on this mask is going to help the whole country. It's hard to gain that perspective, even for me. And so I just thought that we could make it more of a challenge, and make it more fun, and make it more cool.
"Like, if the cool kids are wearing masks, then everyone will want to wear masks," she said with a laugh.
The campaign has been a Chen family affair. Karen focuses primarily on Instagram, while Jeffrey built the website and updates the Facebook page. But the whole family has actively participated.
"Even before the launch, we would have Zoom meetings to just talk about the best strategy and get our parents' input," Karen said. "Any time I'm talking to my mom or my dad, we'll always talk about masks and COVID-19. And I know for the past three weeks, the family group chat is just talking about masks, just on and on and on. So it's just nice to have my family supporting me through this process."
For Jeffrey, inspiration for creating a community of face-covering wearers came from his time as a Team USA athlete and knowing what teamwork can accomplish.
"It's not so much of a, 'Oh, I'm wearing this for me. I'm doing this to protect me,'" Jeffrey said. "Masks are to help your community, to help prevent yourself from hypothetically spreading the virus, even if you don't have it, but preventing it from spreading out to other people. It's so important for everyone to be wearing them. And it's more about the community than the individual."
As the "We Wear Masks" campaign begins to gain momentum, the Chens are keeping their ambitions modest, focusing simply on forward progress and increased exposure.
"I think, at least for now, our goal is to just try and get as many people involved with this as possible," Jeffrey said. "Right now there's no real end goal. We're trying to do our best to do our part in helping reduce the number of cases. Even if it's just by a little bit, it's going to help, right?"
The campaign has seen support from the likes of Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi and current Team USA members Bradie Tennell, Jason Brown, Camden Pulkinen, Ashley Cain-Gribble and others in the figure skating community, as well as Olympians in other sports.
Karen and Jeffrey encourage you to join them in this quest.
"Our main pitch would be that by wearing a mask, you could literally be saving lives, just by doing something so simple," Jeffrey said. "It takes so little energy to put on a mask, and yet you could be doing something so dramatic and saving another person's life. That is kind of insane just how much impact it could have. So why not do it?"
