A Mount Airy resident decided to put her sewing skills to work a few weeks ago, making a handful of face masks to give to school cafeteria workers who are still working, preparing and distributing meals to area children during the coronavirus lockdown.
That effort soon seemed to take on a life of its own, and now, little more than a month later Wendy Carriker has made more than 600 masks. The masks are going to local individuals, businesses, some even being shipped to a firm in Ohio for use among its workforce.
And Carriker hasn’t made a dime off of the project — instead asking individuals to make a donation to the Hungry Bears Backpack program, which sends backpacks filled with food each weekend to city school children who are at risk for not having enough food.
“I just thought I’d make some for the cafeteria ladies and that would be the end of it,” said Carriker, a longtime member of the Mount Airy Board of Education. That was slightly more than a month ago, when Gov. Roy Cooper issued schools closed, along with a bevy of other measures, aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Soon, someone else asked for some, then someone else, and the project took off.
“Just by word of mouth, it has spread like crazy,” said Carriker.
Carriker has long enjoyed sewing and doing seamstress work, so it was a natural fit for her to use those skills in the community. Over the years she’s made “big Bear flags,” she said, sold at the Autumn Leaves Festival to raise money for Vincent’s Legacy Kindness Rocks; she’s made dishtowels with designs sewn in them, and other embroidered materials.
“I used to make my girls matching dresses, like everyone did in the ’80s,” she said with a laugh.
That work helped her hone the skills she’s using now for the masks, and left her with a ready supply of surplus material for the project.
“This has been a great way for me to go through my stash of fabric. I haven’t actually had to buy fabric yet,” she said, though if many more orders come in, she said she will most likely have to start purchasing the raw material to continue making the masks.
One place they’re being distributed is at North Main Pharmacy in Mount Airy, a business operated by fellow school board member Tim Matthews.
“She’s supplied us with 208 masks,” Matthews said. “We’re going through them pretty quick. … We’re handing out 25 to 30 a day.”
The school board chairman said because Carriker would not accept payment for the masks, he didn’t feel he could turn around and sell them. Instead, he gives them out to customers as they express a need or desire for one, with the request they make a $5 donation to the backpack program.
“Last I heard, they had raised well over $500,” Carriker said of the sales.
That money is important for the backpack program, Matthews said. He explained that while the schools’ efforts to supply two meals a day worth of food to area youth during the week is largely funded by government money.
“The backpack piece (of the food program) is not covered by federal dollars; it’s all donations and locally generated support,” he said. “Those are finite dollars that was going fast.”
Matthews was quick to give all the credit for the effort to Carriker, saying “I didn’t do any of the work, I didn’t so anything other than just open my doors for people to come in.” He said one advantage of the masks is that they are washable and reusable, unlike the “real deal” surgical masks health care professionals use.
“You might get three days out of one,” he said of the professional grade masks. “They are just paper, and they fall apart eventually.”
Xtreme! face shields
Carriker’s masks aren’t the only personal protective equipment being made locally to be given away to those who need it.
Xtreme! Marketing, in Pilot Mountain, last month began designing plastic face shields to be used by medical professionals, offering additional protection above the surgical or N95 respirator masks.
John Tarn, company owner, detailed earlier this month how the firm had, in conjunction with several medical professionals, designed a head and face shield with the aim of providing those to medical, hospice, and emergency medical service organizations.
After the design work and prototyping, the company ran into a snag.
“There are no plastics available … for the face shields,” Tarn said on April 1. “We were looking high and low.”
So, the marketing company pivoted to making floor stickers which stores could use to put in check-out lines, helping store customers know where to stand to maintain a six-foot distance. They also made additional packets of stickers, for businesses to use with safety instructions on them for customers — instructions that outlined CDC-recommendations for individuals to follow.
A Mount Airy News article about the project (“Local businesses look to help,” April 2, Mount Airy News, https://www.mtairynews.com/news/85191/local-businesses-look-to-help) caught the eye of Rob MacDougall, CEO of Canton, Massachusetts-based Marathon LS, a biotechnology firm.
MacDougall was able to connect Tarn with Bob Butkovich, of Guardsman Laminating of Bensenville, Illinois, who was able to deliver a supply of the proper grade plastic to Xtreme! Monday morning.
“He was about to produce them (plastic pieces) to the size we needed to put in our laser. They cut them, sent them to use. We’re in the process of cutting out the face shields right now,” Tarn said early Monday afternoon.
He said his firm has enough plastic to make around 1,000 of the protective shields, with hopes the first batch of 200 would be ready by the end of the day Tuesday.
The protective shields will be going out to hospitals, EMS services, hospice organizations, and even some jail facilities, locally and regionally.
And Tarn said his firm is doing the work for free. “This is our way to give back and help out,” Tarn said.
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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com