San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
This week, we meet a couple who saw a way to help.
Couple who lost son has led drive to provide masks, with proceeds going to playground in his name
April and Marvin Chang took the anguish of losing their 3year-old son, Mitchell, to drowning two years ago and transformed it into a force for good during the coronavirus pandemic.
They spearheaded a donation drive that has provided more than 11,000 cloth face masks to health care workers and others in need. In association with H-E-B, they now sell masks to the public, with the proceeds going to the creation of an inclusive public playground in Mitchell’s name. Through the face mask project, they’ve directed work to local seamstresses and other small businesses.
“We wanted to bring something positive out of this tragedy,” April Chang said. “We want to make an impact in his name because he can’t anymore.”
Their desire to help began with unimaginable pain.
In February 2018, the couple dropped off Mitchell and his older brother, Evan, then 5, at Love to Swim School in Stone Oak, where the boys had been taking lessons for nine months.
The school, which has since closed, was offering a “date night,” where parents could leave their children for a couple of hours of pizza, games and swimming while they enjoyed some time alone. It was the first time the Changs had left their sons anywhere outside of their supervision, aside from school, they said.
An hour later, as they finished dinner at a nearby restaurant, April’s phone rang. It was the fire department, saying their son had been pulled from the deep end of the pool, unresponsive. He was en route to a hospital via ambulance.
His heart had stopped beating. While doctors restarted it, their beloved youngest son was declared brain dead.
Mitchell would die the next day at the hospital.
Turning grief into good
Two months later, as a way to deal with their grief, the couple created the Mitchell Chang Foundation, a nonprofit that encourages people to carry out acts of kindness, as their son was wont to do in his short life. As its first project, the foundation raised money and built a modest neighborhood playground in their Stone Oak subdivision.
Buoyed by that success, they began to plan for a bigger playground in Mitchell’s honor, using as inspiration Morgan’s Wonderland, the 25-acre nonprofit park in San Antonio that is designed for people with special needs. They have raised $200,000 through donations.
They approached city leaders, who granted them a halfacre of city land on which to build Mitchell’s Landing at Classen-Steubing Ranch Park, a 204acre public area at Hardy Oak and Huebner. April and her husband, Dr. Marvin Chang, set about writing grant applications to raise the remaining $1 million to bring the playground to fruition.
Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, it didn’t seem right to ask donors for money for a playground.
“Businesses were struggling just to keep workers employed,” Marvin said.
It wasn’t long before they saw another way to be useful. April, 40, noticed some friends who were nurses posting on Facebook about their struggle to find cloth face masks to purchase. The next day, Marvin, 38, an anesthesiologist who works for a large medical group, came home with his own reusable mask, also in short supply. He placed it outside in the sun, hoping ultraviolet rays might help sterilize it.
In early March, the couple learned that SA Masks for Heroes, an online group, was collecting and donating face masks. The Changs knew their foundation — which has more than 5,000 followers and a base of volunteers — could help lead the effort.
“We realized there needed to be a centralized hub,” said April, adding that they also had connections in the medical community through Marvin’s work.
They advertised the drive on the foundation’s webpage. They set up collection bins at six locations across the city. April washed thousands of donated masks, sending the Changs’ water bill through the roof.
With a small army of volunteers, they also created face mask kits that contained pre-cut fabric and elastic, along with instructions on how to sew masks according to government guidelines. The Changs spent their own money to fund the sewing kit program, buying 30 and 40 bolts of fabric at a time at Hobby
Lobby. They also received cash and material donations.
About 1,000 people either donated masks or made them from the kits. Hospitals in the Stone Oak area, the South Texas Medical Center and downtown have received them. Some of the masks even traveled to New York with military nurses who were deployed there.
The Changs also distributed masks to various nonprofits, school districts and other community organizations.
“We have enough to keep going another month,” April said. “We still have kits that we’re saving for the fall, when they may be needed again. We also plan to donate to schools.”
A winning idea
As the mask drive leveled off, April came up with an idea: What if they could produce new masks and sell them, not only to fund the Mitchell’s Landing playground but also to help local seamstresses? She’d learned that many were either out of work or underemployed because of the pandemic.
Marvin agreed it was a good idea. April reached out to H-E-B, figuring she’d get a polite no. To their surprise, the grocery behemoth jumped on board in a big way. Within a month, the masks were on sale in stores throughout the city — $9.99 for one washable mask — with packaging that tells Mitchell’s story and how the money will be used.
“The foundation is beautiful in how it honors Mitchell’s legacy and will create an inclusive play space for all of San Antonio,” H-E-B spokeswoman Julie Bedingfield said. “And the Changs are doing it in a way that’s really relevant to our customers.”
The project employs almost 20 seamstresses, who would be making quinceañara gowns, wedding dresses and other attire if it weren’t for the virus.
“April was our cheerleader and helped us get masks into the hands of doctors and hospitals,” said Veronica Prida, who owns Prida & Rodriguez Studios. Her studio ended up donating about 2,000 face masks through the foundation. The partnership with H-E-B is enabling Prida to keep four seamstresses employed.
“We’re just super-grateful,” she said.
A local printing company both makes the packaging and packages the masks. A company in China, whose owner knows Marvin’s mother, donated almost 80 pounds of elastic.
About 10,500 masks have been sold to H-E-B in the last four weeks; the project is expected to raise $90,000 for the playground. The city’s contribution — in addition to providing the space, it’s also preparing the ground and adding restrooms — will come close to $700,000.
The playground will be free and open to the public.
Mitchell didn’t have special needs, but such a playground fits with his loving personality.
“He was full of sunshine, and every day was a party,” April said. “Everyone was invited. It didn’t matter if he knew you or not.”
Evan, now 7, asks about his little brother sometimes. He’s afraid his other family members might get hurt or disappear.
“He doesn’t understand that it’s not normal for people to go away,” April said.
They’ve since had another son, Tristan, a 7-month-old with red hair and chubby cheeks. The couple is hoping that the foundation’s work will continue to pull them all through the loss of Mitchell.
“People call and say, ‘Mitchell has inspired me to help,’” April said. “To be a light. To be a good story.”