FALMOUTH — Local shop Town Landing Market has been supporting the Falmouth Land Trust by selling face coverings to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Town Landin Market’s display selling Jill McGowan’s facemasks. Courtesy photo
To give back to the Land Trust and support the trails she uses, owner MaryBeth Bachman has been selling masks made by Portland-based designer Jill McGowan, with some of the proceeds going to the trust. The Land Trust plans to use the money entirely towards purchasing land off of Route 1 for the Underwood Spring Forest.
“It’s such a heartening, lovely and organic community thing that came together,” said Jennifer Grimm, director of the Land Trust.
Bachman is a nurse at Falmouth High School and has worked in intensive care units, and said these masks are the most comfortable ones she has worn, so she reached out to McGowan to sell in her store.
“It’s nice to also help another local nonprofit and just with COVID-19 and people needing space to get outside and walk we wanted to donate there. I’m a big advocate of the Land Trust,” Bachman said.
McGowan has been designing and selling clothes for 20 years and selling clothes across the country, as well as at her store at 107 Exchange St., Portland.
McGowan started making the masks for the Kennebec Behavioral Health in Waterville, a center focused on mental health and substance abuse, before eventually expanding her mask sales to her website and in Falmouth.
“It’s a tried and true covering, with high thread count cloth and a (filter) and is re-washable,” McGowan said.
Proceeds from mask sales on her website, jillmcgowan.com, go to Kennebec Behavioral Health.
With mask sales, McGowan has been able to bring back three-quarters of her staff, whom she laid off in early March as the pandemic set in.
So far, Town Landing Market has sold 50 masks in the first week at $20 each, with $5 of each purchase going to the Land Trust.
The 52-acre conservation property the Land Trust intends to purchase has an asking price of around $830,000, and the trust is getting close to the $550,000 mark, Grimm said. According to Grimm, the trails have been heavily used in the past few weeks, though they don’t have numbers.
“Whether it is for mental health reasons, physical health, environmental, people are really telling us how much they’ve needed nature and open space (during the pandemic),” Grimm said. “A lot of people need to get out, but don’t want to go far to do that.”
Hikers are asked to leave spaces in between parking spots and maintain social distancing on the trails.
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