BY MARGARET DAMGHANI
An unexpected endeavor started in mid-March with an email sent to the students of a sewing class at Saint Andrews United Methodist Church looking for anyone interested in fulfilling a request for homemade cloth masks needed by a medical center in Elizabeth City.
In the weeks since then, an impromptu team of about 20 people, mostly residents of the Village at Aversboro retirement community, have contributed to the production and delivery of 721 masks to organizations near and far. After that first email and the accompanying pattern, the idea to create masks was put out through the Village’s messenger service.
“We are just using what technology skills that we know how to do to meet the need. We’re all stuck at home with nothing to do. It kind of adds a little power to what we can do in our retirement,” said Nancy Cope, a retired educator. “We do not sell them, and we do not have any for sale. Our focus is healthcare and frontline workers like the police and the fire department.”
It kind of adds a little power to what we can do in our retirement.”
- Nancy Cope
There are at least six sewers making two different types of masks, along with pattern cutters, a quality control person to snip the threads and insert filters, others help to prepare coffee filters to improve the masks efficacy, a courier, and those that donated materials all contributing to the team of people that have now been working at it for nearly a month.
“We have a system going. We have baskets on our porches, and the deliveries come in Ziploc bags and we leave them in the baskets for several hours, and some of us spray the bags before bringing it in the house,” Cope said.
They only exchange fabric, finished masks, and other supplies through the baskets and are adhering strictly to social distancing guidelines to protect everyone involved, including not accepting donations from the public.
“It really has been neat, the sharing, the community,” said Mary Gail Ellington, a retired nurse and Garner native. She, like many of the sewers, has spent full days sewing.
“It’s a need, and the love of Christ I have, to be his hands.”
- Mary Gail Ellington
The recipients range from Garner’s local first responders to numerous medical offices, hospitals and assisted living facilities, and even a few to caterers and individuals handing out meals to school children that are missing school lunches. The Garner police received 70 masks total, including 50 for their officers and 20 in smaller child sizes, made in kid-friendly fabrics as requested.
The sewers have gone to great care to pick out fabrics suited to the recipients, such as special fabric for the fire department and the cheerful ones for nurses and police officers.
The supplies to create this volume of masks come from a variety of fortuitous circumstances. Spearheaders Cope and Ellington both run Bless This Child programs at their churches𑁋Saint Andrews United and Plymouth Church, where Ellington’s son is a pastor.
The programs provide homemade clothing to children in the U.S and during mission trips abroad, and thus there was already a network of people who, as luck would have it, have an abundance of scraps saved that are too small to do much else with.
Garner Officers Cameron Driver and PL Kevin Pena sporting their Garner grown face masks.
One current issue for anyone producing masks is obtaining enough elastic, which has become nearly impossible to find locally and across the country. Ellington just so happened to have an abundance of elastic she had held onto for years, ever since a local store changed hands, enabling her to give away 10 yards or so to others.
“‘Okay God, you showed me what I’m going to do with that elastic.’” Ellington said. She had recently been wondering if she should just throw it out after holding onto it for so long. “That first week when everybody was sewing, I think I’m the only one in Garner that had elastic.”
The group also received more than one donation from a quilting store in Angier, Sew There. Owner Bonnie Glover has been giving sewers between 10 and 20 yards of elastic at a time, according to Cope.
“Our neighbors were a tremendous source, and the lady at the quilt store (Sew There), Bonnie (Glover), has been very helpful,”
- Nancy Cope
“Our neighbors were a tremendous source, and the lady at the quilt store, Bonnie, has been very helpful,” Cope said. “Just about everybody in this neighborhood found elastic at their house, so we had many sources of elastic...One of our sewers brought me 288 yards of elastic. 288 yards for me and 288 yards for her. I’ve already shared quite a bit of it.”
Jana Soward with Johnston County Pediatrics was one of the first to receive a Garner grown mask.
The spirit of sharing seems to permeate everything the neighbors do, and the requests have not slowed down since they started, though they managed to complete all of the larger requests just before Easter Sunday. They have even begun sending masks by mail to family members and have a list of at-risk residents of their community that may need a mask for medical appointments who will get extra.
Cope said they will continue “As long as we’ve got energy and threads and elastic. Every time we think we’ve finished our list, somebody else calls.”