Lakeside student creates face masks
Kennedy Nida, a freshman at Lakeside, has been making face masks for health care providers and the public across the United States to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
“This is a great example of a difference-maker. A student that can see that helping others is so important. As we fight this battle, I love seeing students step up and be a part of the solution. This makes me so happy. The athletic events have been canceled for the year, but this student just batted this one out of the park,” Lakeside Superintendent Shawn Cook said.
Nida said that she decided to start making the masks because a health care clinic in Hot Springs was asking around for masks.
“Then I had other health care officials and families start asking me, so I just kind of made my own little business,” she said.
“We get to see her do that often throughout the year but never to this
level. This has been an entire month. Hundreds of hours. It’s just really rewarding to see her invest her time like that,” said her mother, Sarah Nida Inman.
“I’ve made a little over 600 (masks), but every day we get more and more orders. So, it’s just the number keeps rising,” Nida said.
Nida is a part of a group called Queen City Masks, which helps her with the big orders, and she noted that her parents help, as well.
“The crazy part is this is completely spread by word-ofmouth. She hasn’t had any publicity or anything of that nature.
I do think a lot of people can’t afford them. There are a lot of people selling them for high prices, but she’s doing this for nothing but donations. If they can’t afford a mask, Kennedy is a good place to get one from because we’re not charging for that,” Inman said.
Nida said she creates the mask with four layers of fabric, adding four pieces of either ribbon, string or something to tie it back, then sews it like a rectangle.
“You have to have a pocket inside of it. So you can put a filter of some sort inside so that your mask is actually useful. I use coffee filters for the filters,” she said.
Inman said that people have donated fabric, ribbons and anything else that she may need to keep her project going. At some point, they do run out of money to keep doing it for free, but people have kept it going by donating goods and services.
“It’s been cool to see how people have stepped in to help her keep the work moving forward,” she said.
“The only thing that’s been hard for us to pay for is the postage. We have asked some people to help cover their postage because we were spending anywhere from $25 to $50 a day at the post office, and that gets expensive,” Inman said.
Nida said that she had shipped masks to citizens in New York, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, including Hot Springs, Sheridan, Little Rock and White Hall. These are people that are in Nida’s family, friends or health care officials.
“This is a service project because I am Miss Ouachita Rivers Outstanding Teen. I’m not asking for any money or anything in return. All I ask is that people donate towards Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. I provide them with a link to the website where they can donate if they feel led to,” she said.
As of Friday, Nida has raised
$2,850 out of $5,000. The money she raises will help save children’s lives, and a portion will also go to support the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen Scholarship Fund, Nida said on her donation page.
Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals makes sure that donated funds stay local, which means that the donation helps kids and families right here in the community.
Anyone interested in donating can visit https://maoteen4kids.org/Contestant/Kennedy. Inman said that her daughter and the group spends five to six hours a day creating the masks. They have been working seven days a week to meet the demands. As of Friday, they have over 150 masks that have been requested.
“She had 10 orders that we had not finished, and then she got a request for 100 and another request for 40 because people are being sent back to work that they can’t go back to without a mask,” she said.
Inman said that citizens and health care providers who are looking to place an order for a mask can visit Nida’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kennedy.nida.9.