Last week the Clearwater Fire Dept. received a donation of 160 masks from an unlikely source, the MyPillow company.

The masks were delivered by Scott Woskie, who became friends with Mike Lindell, the CEO and founder of MyPillow, before he had started the company and they were both living in Victoria, MN. In 2004 Lindell founded MyPillow, which is based out of Chaska, after he had invented and patented their signature pillow, of which over 41 million have since been sold.

Last month Lindell announced MyPillow had joined the fight against COVID-19 by converting a portion of its manufacturing facility to make face masks for healthcare workers, not to sell to the public.

“I like to get involved in things,” said Woskie, who now lives in Bloomington. “When I heard MyPillow was manufacturing face masks to help fight COVID-19, I contacted the company to see if I could get 300 of them to distribute to fire departments that friends of mine belong to.”

When Woskie picked up the masks, which are made of double layered, washable, 100% cotton, the company gave him a box of 750, over double the amount he had asked for.

So far he has delivered 160 face masks to the Clearwater Fire Dept., 200 to the Bloomington Fire Dept., 100 to the White Bear Lake Fire Dept., and is bringing some to Welcome, MN.

He is heading to Emily, MN sometime in the next week to deliver masks to their fire department, too.