{"id":160546,"date":"2020-05-04T07:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=160546"},"modified":"2020-06-08T15:30:10","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T19:30:10","slug":"uconn-stamford-student-makes-250-masks-health-care-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/05\/uconn-stamford-student-makes-250-masks-health-care-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Stamford Student Makes 250 Masks for Health Care Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahmed Diakhate ’23 (BUS), a finance major at UConn Stamford and the owner of a fashion company, has created and donated 250 face masks to health care workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels great to be able to help the people around me that are putting their lives on the line to dismiss the horrid situation we are all in,\u2019\u2019 says Diakhate, a Hamden native. \u201cI had the tools to be able to do so, and I feel creating these masks and donating them was the best way for me to use them.\u2019\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Diakhate, who sewed the antibacterial masks between breaks in his studies, distributed them to Yale New Haven Hospital and Masonicare, a senior living center in Wallingford. He chose those two institutions because family friends work there. He gradually became so skilled in making the face masks that he could complete one in about five minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Diakhate started his clothing brand, LOST! Clothing, <\/span>almost two years ago.<\/span> The name came from the idea that clothing, and life, is what you make of it. He\u2019s produced five collections to date, including a best seller t-shirt, hoodies, and denim jeans and jackets. He handles all aspects of the business himself, from design to marketing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith the clothing I create, I aim to be conceptual. I want people to look at a shirt that I made and come up with\u00a0a million different ideas of the thought process and what exactly this\u00a0design represents,\u2019\u2019 he says. \u201cMy target market is generally teens to young adults that are interested in the world of streetwear, but I am constantly evolving my company to become a household brand\u00a0that can suit everybody.\u2019\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

His interest in finance is equally entrepreneurial: Diakhate trades stock in his free time. He also co-chairs the finance management committee for the Business Connections Learning Community in Stamford, and enjoys listening to music and playing video games in his free time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think in a time of need, like this, everybody should learn something new and, if they can, they should do something to better the world,\u2019\u2019 Diakhate says. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UConn Stamford student put his fashion design skills to work in making masks for area health care workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":160547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,2213,1862,174],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-160546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-coronavirus","category-busn","category-uconn-stamford"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:08:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161694,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160546\/revisions\/161694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/160547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160546"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=160546"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=160546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}