Saskatoon locals come to aid of local store in need

Short on face masks and hand sanitizer and unable to find them anywhere in the city, the employees at Savor Supermarket in Saskatoon decided to make one last ditch effort to get some before resorting to closing down the store.

“We were thinking if we don’t have the mask, if we don’t have the hand sanitizer, if we don’t have the gloves, so we should shut it off because we don’t want to take any risks for ourselves and our customers in the community as well,” said manager Syed Rizwan.

“At that time we don’t have any masks but nobody has it, it’s short in (the) whole city. We just post on the Facebook that we need this to continue to serve the community.”

And the community delivered.

Among the outpouring of support from the community was Rashid Ahmed. Upon seeing the Facebook post, Ahmed didn’t even need to think, he already knew what he could do to help.

Ahmed, with the help of his mother, hand-made approximately 50 face masks for the workers of Savor and delivered them Saturday night.

The idea came to him from his wife who is living in Iran and has made and distributed over 300 masks to the homeless and children on the street.

“Basically once I got that inspiration, I saw the post, and I thought right away my wife is already doing it in Iran, so we can do it here in Saskatoon and help the store because they are providing grocery and food to the people who are in need,” said Ahmed.

“So I contacted the owner and told them we are bringing some face masks for you and that’s how we helped them.”

Between the Google searches, consulting with his wife and the trial and error process to find the right material, the whole process took the two of them over four hours. However, now that he knows how to do it, he says the next batch will be done much quicker.

Ahmed wasn’t the only one to come to the aid of the store. Rizwan says, to his surprise, they received a lot of calls and messages from people who were willing to bring them masks or share places they would be able to find some.

“It’s very encouraging at this time of panic and everybody is conscious about health it was very surprising and encouraging for us that everybody is thinking they need and want to help, so it’s very good, very positive,” he said.

For Ahmed, spreading that positivity is really important, especially in these uncertain times and he encourages everyone who is stuck at home or laid-off right now to also do what they can to help others.

“A lot of people are afraid right now because this is a very new thing,” he said.

“So this would be a good way and positive work that we can do at home because if we are free we can do this stuff and we can help others and I think in this hard time we have to be together and we have to go through with this issue very soon.”