Southwestern Center for Independent Living provides thousands of free face masks


Annette Swanson, grants and financial manager with the Southwestern Center for Independent Living (SWCIL), holds one of the boxes of cloth face masks the organization received from the federal government late last fall. The boxes behind her were also full of masks that the organization gave out for free to people in southwest Minnesota. SWCIL recently received thousands more masks and is providing them for free to anyone who wants them. Contributed photo

One of the most important actions people can take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to wear a face mask, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Southwestern Center for Independent Living (SWCIL) is helping thousands of people in southwest Minnesota do that by giving away free, reusable, adult-size, cloth face masks.
SWCIL is a private nonprofit organization that receives state and federal funds to serve people with disabilities in 15 counties in southwest Minnesota. That includes Big Stone, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Lac qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Renville, Rock, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties.
There are similar centers for independent living (CILs) all over the state and all over the country. CILs are consumer-directed, which means that at least 51 percent of their board of directors and staff must be people with disabilities.
SWCIL’s mission is to work with and respond to the changing needs of people with disabilities to promote societal acceptance, inclusion and equal access for all persons with disabilities.
“Our role is to be able to work with persons with disabilities to help them achieve their goals to maintain a lifestyle and independence that they choose,” said Linda Halbur, program manager for SWCIL’s consumer directed community supports support planner program and veterans directed care program. “We have some core services. We do some independent living skills training, a lot of advocacy work, some information and referral, peer counseling, and transition and relocation services from a facility back into the community.”
Halbur said SWCIL’s services are provided without regard to income. She said their consumers are either referred to them or can reach out to SWCIL on their own for services.
“Our goal is to serve under served populations, so it’s people who are not able to find services elsewhere,” Halbur said.
The mask distribution is a step outside the scope of the organization’s normal services. Jennifer Cox, SWCIL’s community projects coordinator, said anyone can receive face masks through the organization.
Cox said the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) contacted SWCIL last fall to let them know they could request face masks through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Project: America Strong.
“That is a FEMA-based federally funded program to help get PPE to the general public and the fastest way to do that, FEMA decided, was to get it in the hands of local providers who are already boots on the ground with the general public in an area,” Cox said.
The number of masks they could obtain was dependent upon the number of COVID-19 cases in the state at the time. SWCIL ordered a full pallet of 22,500 masks in October and ended up getting the full amount because the number of cases in Minnesota was high and climbing at the time.
SWCIL started giving the masks out by request in late November to the individuals they work with and their community partners, such as food shelves, hospitals, nursing homes, transportation providers, churches, family services agencies, crisis centers and schools, so that those entities could give them to people they work with in their communities.
Cox said they thought it might take six months to distribute the masks, but by the middle of January they had distributed 21,475 masks. About that same time, SWCIL was able to request more masks and asked for 10,000. It received those last week.
Anyone who wants masks can go to SWCIL’s website at www.swcil.com and click on the link to be taken to the mask request page. There are no income, disability or any other requirements. Just complete the order form and the masks will be mailed out at no cost. The masks come in packages of five.
Cox said SWCIL is grateful to be able to take some of the financial burden off families and help keep them safe.
“There’s such a financial burden with this,” Cox said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re low income or where you fall on the income scale. All these supplies for COVID add up — masks, cleaning supplies, thermometers, all these extra precautionary things that have become, I hate to say it, but normal in our day-to-day life right now are expensive.”
More information about SWCIL is available on its website.