HinghamLink Community Masks
What Is It?
Suzanne Kay of Hingham had already made more than 100 masks for hospitals, family, and friends when she saw HinghamLink’s video about needing a coordinator for our Community Mask effort.
Suzanne is a retired retail manager with lots of sewing experience. She contacted us and stepped up to be that volunteer, coordinating the effort we’re announcing today to make“Community Masks” for vulnerable people in Hingham.
When Suzanne was contacted about helping, she was immediately on board and enthusiastic. She started sending photos to help get the word out, and said “Hingham volunteers, let's rally and sew masks for our seniors and health compromised neighbors.”
What’s Happening?
The Face Mask Task Force has been making masks for medical professionals at surrounding hospitals for several weeks, and HinghamLink was happy to help let people know about their work.
But now the community is being asked to assist with making masks for Hingham people who are vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. If you can help out, please join us – every little bit helps.
There was a great article in the Smithsonian Magazine about the new CDC guidelines for wearing a fabric mask in public situations where social distancing is difficult, like at the grocery store.
How You Can Get Involved
Here’s what you can do right now:
a) Volunteer to sew masks: https://www.hinghamlink.com/MakeMasks.
b) Sign up at the same page to sterilize and donate fabric (there’s NO NEED to go to the store). Please repurpose fabrics and pre-loved clothing.
c) If you can’t sew, you can still sign up to cut fabric into rectangles for the sewers.
d) Return completed masks to Suzanne Kay, where they will be sterilized again and distributed by HinghamLink volunteers to people needing masks.
Each team could assemble 25 per day or more, and this would make a huge difference to Hingham people!
Details
For fabric donations, we are looking for
· cotton fabric
· 1/8"or 1/4" elastic
· bathing suit fabric or t-shirts cut into 3/4" strips (to use in place of elastic for ear loops).
All fabric being donated should be washed and dried (at the highest heat setting) first. We’ll also need sturdy sewing thread.
Here’s a video on how to make face masks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcNL95YgxBM&t=35s
The drop-off location for donated fabric and supplies will be at the St. Paul’s Church rectory porch (on the church side). There will be a covered and labeled tub there for donations of fabric, elastic, etc.
Who’s Coordinating the Effort?
You can reach the main organizers via the e-mails below:
· SuzanneKay, kayfamily6@verizon.net
· Alexis Lefort, lefort.alexis@gmail.com
· Joelle Riddell, jriddell328@gmail.com
· Dan Power, HinghamLink@gmail.com
When & Where Is This Happening?
This is happening right now – and the HinghamLink Community Mask effort needs you to make masks to help protect vulnerable Hingham people ASAP!
Why Is This So Important?
There are many seniors and other people at elevated risk in our community. Let’s be there for them in this crisis!
To Request a Mask
We are taking requests forCommunity Masks at https://www.hinghamlink.com/NeedMasks.
Please keep in mind that it will take us a bit of time to make enough masks to start distributing them, and then we may have to allocate production based on people’s medical situation, rather than a first-come, first-served basis.
For a PDF version of this article, please click here.