When there’s a need, there’s a volunteer.
And with the continued spread of coronavirus, there has been a huge need for protective masks by hospital workers on the frontline against the pandemic.
In response, University Hospitals has developed a prototype for fabric masks that they will now accept at their facilities. The hospital has requested assistance in sewing together these masks from kits the hospital is providing, and boy have the volunteers come out to help.
Photo by Brenda Junkin
“I want to do something,” said Brenda Lesko, a Bedford Medical Center volunteer. “I want to help. I just can’t sit around my home while this is going on and do nothing. I heard UH wants 100,000 masks in just a few weeks. I can be part of that!”
Sharon Adams, another volunteer, is the newest version of “Rosie the Riveter” only her nickname is “Sharon the Seamstress.” She has made 60 masks already. An amazing seamstress, she has approached this like an assembly line.
“I want to make as many as I can and quickly; the need is immediate,” says Adams. “So I set everything out, cut, sew and assemble. I was glad to see everything was in the kit. I was thinking I’d have to open paper clips or something for the nose section, but most everything was there. Some kits did not have ribbon, I have some in my own stash to work with. As a seamstress you collect stuff.”
Adams has been taking three kits home at a time, with each kit containing the makings for 10 masks.
Adams was first approached by the American Sewing Guild to make masks, but when she found out her own hometown hospital, Bedford Medical Center, needed particular masks, she jumped at the chance to keep it local.
“I’m happy to help my town and my hospital in any way I can,” she said. “I’ve read that the CDC said the masks are important for everyone, not just health care, so I copied this prototype, and with my own fabric, made some for my family.”
“Everyone that can, needs to help with this,” she said. “Your mind just can’t comprehend what’s really going on. It’s surreal… But it’s real and we need to come together right now.”
Volunteers who wish to help with work on the kits can call the University Hospitals Management Service Center on Warrensville Center Road at (866) 844-2273. There are 10 mask kits in each set, and everything included in the kits is cut to make.
Click on this link for a mask-making tutorial https://bit.ly/2RcdsCn
