Joey –
I’m writing to make you aware of an amazing campaign that has been developed by a group of teenagers from Gloucester to promote the importance of wearing masks. This small group of teens are peer leaders in the Gloucester Youth Leadership Council (GYLC), and they saw that some members of their community – young and old – were not taking the mandate to wear masks when in public places seriously. They decided to do something about it by showing that masks not only help prevent the spread of COVID-19, but can also be fashionable and cool, no matter your personal style or aesthetic. They have created a series of posters featuring a wide range of people of different sizes, shapes, and ethnicities, all wearing masks. The tag line for the campaign is “Just Wear It. Masks Are For Everyone.” It is important to note that the campaign is completely youth-created: GYLC members did all of the sketches that appear on the posters themselves, and they even hired an 18-year old New Jersey-based graphic designer who worked remotely with them to design the layout and digitize their artwork.
Posters are being printed in 5 different languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Italian. The group is also producing a banner that will be hung in St. Peter’s Square as well as providing the artwork by PDF so businesses that want to print them on their own can do so. They will also be distributed and hung up in all of the district’s schools, by request of the superintendent. I have attached a few examples of the posters (two in English and one in Spanish) which will be hung up around the City this week.
