KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Editor's note: The headline has been modified to more accurately reflect story.
A Kansas City business is donating 1,000 masks in honor of fallen Overland Park Police Officer Mike Mosher.
Nearly 400 people are expected to attend Mosher's funeral on Wednesday. In order for the funeral to take place indoors, masks must be worn by everyone in attendance. SewKC will donate the masks to Mosher's friends and family to be worn as a safety measure.
The masks are designed with the symbolic 'thin blue line.'
Michele Dawbarn, co-owner of sewKC, said she wants the masks to be made with special care.
"[The police] want it to be beautiful," Dawbarn said. "Police officers, they take a lot of pride in that, and that needs to be something that looks uniform across the board."
SewKC began creating masks during the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. They started a buy one, get one program, that put the company in a financial position to be able to donate the masks for Mosher's funeral.
"It's definitely emotional, you know, this hits home," Dawbarn said. "We have an amazing team of individuals that will be working 12 to 15 hour days the next couple days to make sure that they not only have them in time for the funeral, but they have them early."
Officer Bradley Heater with OPPD spent the past 13 years working alongside and building a friendship with Mosher.
"Just a lot going through my mind about him and how much I loved him and how much we, as a department loved and cared about him, and how much we're going to miss him," Heater said. "We want to make sure we're going to take care of his family, and we're going to, definitely. We're always going to be there for them."
Heater said Mosher didn't like the spotlight, but when it comes to the outpouring of love and support coming in from the community and from sewKC, he said Mosher would be happy.
"He would love it," Heater said. "He'd definitely respect it and love the gesture that we're going to show him because we're going to go all out for him."
Mosher's funeral is private. However, there will be a drive-by visitation on Tuesday for the public.
"We would love to have people out on the streets lining along College and Metcalf to show support," Heater said. "The outpouring of support from the public has been awesome. It just goes to show you how much the public, they do really care about us and about what we do, and you know, we love them just as much. We just want to do our best to remember him and pay him respects the next couple weeks."
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