MGS brothers design customised face masks to raise money for UNICEF
Posted on: September 16th 2020School News
Enterprising MGS brothers have launched an initiative to help children across the world affected by Covid-19 by selling customised face masks.
Pal Kerecsenyi, 16, and his younger brother Geza, 14, who are both pupils at MGS, came up with the idea to sell customised face masks to staff at pupils at MGS and, in doing so, raise money for UNICEF’s Save Generation Covid appeal.
Both Pal and Geza are extremely gifted coders and computer programmers, and have built a bespoke website where staff and pupils can order face masks with a variety of different logos.
There is also an option to submit customised requests, which are then printed onto the masks.
The website also offers hand sanitiser and other items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including snoods, disposable masks and visors.
Having bought the plain masks in bulk, the brothers customise the masks at their home in a fully sanitary manner including wearing visors, face masks and disposable gloves which are changed regularly to prevent cross-contamination. The masks are then packaged in individual, fully sealed, recyclable plastic packaging and then quarantined before being sold.
Pal and Geza designed an option on their website that allows MGS boys to upload details of their form room so that the masks can be delivered in person, so as to avoid boys having to leave their secure year group bubbles to pick them up.
The brothers are also selling the masks in classrooms, with Pal and Geza visiting classrooms so that year group bubbles do not mix and boys do not leave their designated areas. To avoid contamination, the brothers have a simple contactless card reader to allow pupils and staff to pay with contactless debit cards.
Pal and Geza said: “In these strange, uncertain times, many of the aspects of school life that students and staff are most used to have completely changed.
“We wanted to do something that could restore some of the sense of community within the School. Therefore, when we happened upon the method for creating custom masks, we thought it would be the perfect way to achieve this, while also raising some money for charity in the process. We decided on UNICEF because we wanted to support a cause that was relevant to what caused the necessity for this in the first place.
“UNICEF seemed to be the best cause for this - its focus on helping communities affected socio-economically by the pandemic resonated with our personal motivations of rebuilding community and spreading hope that things will soon return to normal.”
Mrs Vivienne Horsfield, Assistant Head at MGS, with responsibility for the School's Charity and Outreach Programme, said: “This is an absolutely brilliant idea by Pal and Geza. They are such talented and gifted young men and they have combined their incredible computing and coding abilities with an initiative that will not only help reduce transmission of the virus, but also raise money that will help children across the world affected by Covid-19.
“They should be applauded for what they’re doing and I would urge our boys and staff to please buy a mask!”
To visit the website, click here.