“An opportunity to do something concrete for the other and to help our country, in this moment of uncertainty and suspension“. Luisa Colombo explains to Sir the reasons that prompted the “Fantasy” brand, a factory that has been producing textile products for children for over 50 years, to convert from the production of objects to the manufacture of anti-Covid-19 personal protective masks.
The factory is located in the heart of Loppiano, a citadel of the Focolare Movement, 260 hectares of land immersed in the green hills of Incisa Valdarno, less than 20 kilometers from Florence. Almost a thousand people live here today: they come from all over the world adhering to the proposal made in the early 1960s by the founder Chiara Lubich, to “embody in a city the Gospel law of mutual love, combining it with elements of a city modern in which to live, educate, work ”.
Two years ago, Pope Francis visited Loppiano and asked the inhabitants of the citadel to listen to the “often dramatic urgencies that challenge us from all sides and cannot leave us alone“. It is necessary – he said on that occasion – men and women “capable of tracing new paths to go together” to create “a global civilization of the alliance”.
“Fantasy, like the other brands that operate within the Citadel, has always adhered to this “lifestyle”, carving out an important place in the market for textile products for children. “At the end of February however – says Luisa Colombo, who together with Marco Barlucchi, is responsible for the masks project – we realized that the crisis in the sector was worsening. The epidemic and immediately after the blockade of China began to have a very strong impact that immediately made itself felt on the drop in commissions and orders “. It is at this point that an unusual request from the Tuscany Region arrives in Loppiano: the willingness to manufacture masks. Fantasy adheres immediately, converting, as far as possible, the sewing and storage workshops.
The inhabitants of the citadel participate in the production – always says Colombo – in particular the over 100 young people who are here as guests for a period of time, coming from all over the world. Divided into two rounds of 35 people producing from 3,000 to 5,000 masks per day. “The idea is to offer Made in Loppiano masks” which the Region of Tuscany distributes above all to operators and those who work in nursing homes for the elderly. “We put ourselves in this project – adds Colombo – aware of living in a moment of great uncertainty, where nobody has yet clear ideas of how the situation and our lives will evolve in a few months, but we have accepted this request because it immediately seemed an activity that can combine on one hand the desire to make a contribution to our country and on the other the needs, in this time of crisis, to find an economic and work outlet “.