Tennesseans sew masks to help health care field
Tennesseans sew masks to help health care workers
Before last week the closest thing to a protective mask seamstress June Kingsbury had made was face coverings for members of the local band Here Come the Mummies. ❚ “I’ve sewn almost all my life, but I’d never made fabric masks before,” Kingsbury said. “I had no need.” ❚ As a result of the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, there is a shortage of protective masks in Nashville and the surrounding area. Volunteers like Kingsbury are helping to fill that need.
“We have been so touched with how many people have reached out to us to make masks, who are asking how they can contribute,” said Angela Purinton, associate program manager of volunteer services at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “We have great community members in the Middle Tennessee area and they are being safe. They are following the guidance around social distancing, but while they’re home they still want something else to do. You know there is only so much TV you can watch.”
Kingsbury is among the volunteers who are jumping in to help make masks for health care clinicians and other caregivers in the area.
“People want hope, they want to take action,” Kingsbury said. “My feeling is, it’s a drop in the bucket. But how else do you fill a bucket?”
Kingsbury, a theatrical costume designer at Lipscomb University, created a Facebook page — Medthreads Volunteers Nashville — last Friday to encourage others to help meet the need.
Before the end of day, five people had joined the group. By Tuesday, more than 200 had.
“If you can follow a pattern and you know how to sew, it’s not that complicated,” Kingsbury said. “We’re trying to meet the needs to protect the people (who) ...are out there on the front lines covering for us.”
Medical personnel directly treating patients stricken by the COVID-19 virus do not use the homemade masks. They are required to use N95 masks, which meet a higher standard.
“A homemade mask is not the same as an N95 respirator that a health care provider would actually be using on the front lines,” Purinton said. “Our staff has adequate supplies for those patients that are COVID-19 positive that are admitted into the hospital. Homemade masks are for lower-risk situations.”
Masks are reusable
The homemade masks are made from 100 percent cotton, which is what was used before disposable masks became more popular.
Fabric masks can be bleached, sanitized, washed and reused.
On Monday, Kingsbury and another member of the Facebook group made 74 masks that were delivered to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Kingsbury’s sister-in-law Kim Kingsbury made 20 masks that were taken to a local assisted living home.
Doris Mcmillan, a Williamson County seamstress, was tagged in a Facebook post about masks for medical personnel at Nashville hospitals.
She felt there also was a need in her area.
“I have a hospital right here ... in my community (Williamson Medical Center) and I’m going to do something for that hospital,” Mcmillan said.
Mcmillan had free time because she is the seamstress for country music star Naomi Judd, whose performances have been canceled due to the pandemic.
It was her relationship with Judd that gave Mcmillan even greater inspiration.
“I have been Naomi Judd’s seamstress for 21 years and she is very dear to me,” Mcmillan said. “And that’s a big part of why I want to donate to Williamson Medical Center because she started her career there. We come full circle here. We are stronger together.”
Mcmillan said she makes 10 to 20 masks an hour, and that 8 to 10 masks cost $10. She pays for her own materials.
Robin Moore, an attorney in Carthage, is making masks when she’s not working.
“I was looking for ways to help and saw an article with a video that had a pattern, and it really didn’t take any special skill. I knew I had most of the supplies,” Moore said. “The only thing I lacked was the elastic, and my neighbor who is in her nineties had a large spool and within 10 minutes we had 200 yards of elastic and got started. I’ve had requests for well over 200 masks, which we are going to try to fill ...”
Leaving the couch
Making masks has helped Krystal Douglas overcome a helpless feeling during the quarantine.
Douglas owns Music City Sewing in downtown Nashville and was looking for something productive to do after her business slowed.
“I was feeling really, really helpless,” Douglas said. “It was like there was nothing you could do — you’re called to sit on your couch.”
Douglas had been thinking how easy it would be with her experience to make protective masks.
“I was literally sitting on the couch saying, ‘God give me something to do. I am going to go crazy,’ because I am usually always busy,” Douglas said.
A doctor she connected with on Twitter provided a link to the CDC web site and Douglas checked there for the details.
Delivering the goods
Getting the masks to hospital personnel has to be handled carefully. Precautions are taken to minimize the risk of coronavirus to those who made them.
Douglas’ masks have been delivered to Vanderbilt, St. Thomas, Centennial and Williamson Medical Center. She leaves her masks outside her door where they are picked up.
“Nurses... take (the masks) straight to hospital laundry,” she said. “I’ve been isolated, but just in case, they’re washing them before they use them.”
To help with donations, visit Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s website about making face masks.
Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021.