‘Mask making is the least I can do.’ Bradenton volunteers make masks for health workers

Being out of work or self isolating isn’t stopping a few hundred volunteers across Manatee and Sarasota counties from getting into the battle against the novel coronavirus.

Together, they have produced and delivered to healthcare workers in local hospitals and nursing homes more than 30,000 masks. Yet most have probably never met other than through Facebook.

Their reasons for doing so vary slightly, but all have a common theme.

“I love the opportunity to do something bigger than myself in these hard times,” said one volunteer, while another said, “We are only as good as that we choose to ignore. I am not a nurse or a doctor, but I am a Nana and I care.”

They are just a couple of isolated souls who felt the need to help but didn’t know what to do until a call to action was put out to the community to make masks.

That call to action led to the involvement of Lutheran Family Services and the Pittsburgh Pirates who then put out the Pirates Challenge. The movement has continued to evolve.

The production of 30,000 critically needed masks to fill a large gap in personal protective gear shortfalls in area healthcare facilities by about 150 sewers in a month is an impressive mass production feat from a small scale operation.

That’s especially true when taking into account that all of the masks are made from used clothing. The evolution then continued as Goodwill became involved, donating more than 89,000 pounds of clothing. The Mantee Sarasota PPE movement was well underway and has come a long way from the six original volunteers sitting around sewing masks.

And each one is produced under guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control.

“Making sure we are not contributing to the problem is what we needed to make sure we were doing,” said Hope Carey, of the Manatee County for Aging Network. “So we have followed CDC advice that if we are going to make masks, this is what they need to look like.”

There are currently about 150 sewers spending full days producing the masks and several more volunteers who are stepping in with their own skills to help distribute and coordinate “this massive undertaking,” Carey said.

“When we first started this, we had about 2,500 people because everyone was so gung ho and excited but then realized this is a massive project. If we stop, people aren’t getting masks and requests are coming in like crazy. We never realized the degree of how deep this goes, the degree of how many people are affected and don’t have protection.”

Healthcare workers saw a crisis coming

Though healthcare agencies were left unprepared to deal with a pandemic with a lack of PPE, healthcare workers knew what was coming. Carey said about 90 percent of those coordinating the project are healthcare workers of some kind.

“When all this was coming, when we were starting to hear about it in other places, we said we need to get together and figure out what we can do and try and help with what we know is coming,” Carey said. “We knew what this was going to look like as far as not having PPE ready for agencies that were going to be serving at-risk people.”

Carey said the Manatee County for Aging Network had not yet spent grant funding meant to serve seniors so they took that money and put it into this project.

“At that point, we just started begging people and calling people who we knew might volunteer their time,” Carey said. “We found out that my church had started doing the same thing and I said, hey, we should partner in this because none of us have a sewing machine or know anything about making masks, nor did they. It just started as people saying what is the one thing we can to do help get ahead of the curve.”

Who they heard from first were the nurses at area hospitals who did not have enough PPE. As the group delivered thousands to area hospitals, the focus shifted to nursing homes whose staff and patients were most at risk as the virus began to hit them hard.

Carey said too often, administration in healthcare facilities would tell the group they didn’t need any help, but the workers inside told a different story, “So we shifted our focus to them.”

They now make four different kinds of masks depending on the medical needs of any given request.

‘Just be a helper’

Toni Muirhead is one of the volunteers.

Normally she would be working as a massage therapist at a cancer treatment facility, or volunteering with Hospice or Meals on Wheels Plus. She found herself as being a nonessential worker and volunteers at essential agencies were being asked not to come during the pandemic.

“I’m a person who needs to do something,” Muirhead said. “I’ve sewed all my life and figured I can do this. This helps me too, because otherwise I’d be sitting at home lamenting on all these things I can’t do. I feel like it’s the old Mr. Rogers statement: Just be a helper.”

Following the strict guidelines of the CDC takes seamstress skills. Many of the volunteers hadn’t sewn in awhile and dragged out dusty old machines and figured out a way to make them work to standards.

Beth Stager, an independent partner of Electronic Caregiver, a company that offers electronic devices to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and other ailments, teamed up with the Manatee Sarasota PPE Mask group. Volunteers reached out to her as to why they got involved, as well.

“Our team is proud to be supportive of those who are supporting us,” one volunteer told Stager.

Another said, “I’m delivering because I can’t sew,” while another noted, “The entire world is in a crisis that has no bounds from this global germ. ... There are no words for the bravery of those standing on the front lines against this monster. Mask making is the least I can do.”

Stager got teary-eyed as she read the statements.

“It’s affected a lot of people and we are so very thankful,” she said.

The battle continues

Carey knows the battle healthcare workers are facing. She not only suffered for six weeks from COVID-19 before official numbers began appearing, but was on the front lines of the H1N1 crisis in nursing homes.

“We were trying to save lives then,” Carey said. “And this virus is so much more contagious. That’s why our volunteers are working this like a full time job. We haven’t slept at times because we know if we stop, people are uncovered. And we’ve heard from a lot of healthcare facilities that have ordered PPE but won’t get them until August.”

Carey fears an even longer impact of COVID-19.

“We hear things that most people don’t,” she said. “I saw the pictures of a man’s lungs that were all ate up, but he never had any symptoms. What’s the long-term effect of that going to be? And you look at people outside not wearing masks and you are just like, ‘Are you crazy? Are you not hearing what is happening?’”

To learn more, visit their Facebook page at Manatee Sarasota PPE Mask page.