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ST. JOHNSBURY — Kim Behr, admittedly, can’t sew. But Covid-19 inspired her to gather people who could.
When the state’s stay-home order went into effect, the 54-year-old from St. Johnsbury started an effort to shore up masks and protective supplies for frontline workers and vulnerable people.
She called it NEK Operation Face Mask, and almost a month in, she’s been blown away by the outpouring of volunteers.
“We’re now over 3,500 masks, and we are continuing to make surgical gowns and surgical caps,” she said Monday. “The more we sew, the more requests we get.”
One hundred eleven people had signed up to sew gear as of that day, she said, most of them from the Northeast Kingdom. The masks, gowns and caps they make are being donated to health care workers, aging people and those with immune-system problems.
“It’s just been phenomenal,” said Laural Ruggles, a spokesperson for Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury. “To be able to refer [people requesting masks] to a resource in the community — it’s one less thing that we have to worry about.”
Sewers sent in about 400 masks for the hospital, and because others have been donating too, the hospital asked Behr to look for other folks who need them.
Those have included essential workers at Northeast Kingdom Community Action, the Northeast Kingdom Council on Aging, a local White Market, a veterinary clinic and even a Dollar General in Springfield, Behr said.
“We’re getting a lot of requests, everywhere from Canaan to Island Pond, St. Johnsbury, Danville,” she said, noting that she tries to deliver them herself as often as possible.
She said the volunteer effort has supplied the Council on Aging with 200 masks for its workers and clients — with 325 more to come this week — and that sewers have been working on a 200-gown request from NVRH.
Wearing a mask is one of the most important things people can do to stem the coronavirus crisis, Ruggles said, and her hospital hopes the regional drive can remind communities of that.
So how does NEK Operation Face Mask work?
Behr prepares kits of pre-cut fabric in ziplock bags, enough to make five masks.
When people ask to participate, she packs the kits in brown paper bags with the volunteers’ names scrawled in marker and leaves them on her front porch.
The volunteers pick the materials up, and when they’re finished, they drop them off in a plastic bin on the porch and log what they’ve done on a sheet of paper.
“It’s actually pretty funny, so many people coming up and down my porch,” Behr said, explaining how people have had to navigate social distancing rules while stopping by.
Kelly Doyle, 55, is one of those people. The St. Johnsbury woman runs Carcajou Interiors, an interior fabric business, making things like custom pillows.
When she heard about the face mask effort, she thought it was the perfect opportunity to help out.
“It makes it meaningful,” she said Monday. “You’re making an object that might help somebody save a life, or save their life, or prevent them from getting sick.”
She said she’s made about 75 masks, almost 50 caps and around nine gowns. The masks come together quickly, taking between 10 and 20 minutes to finish, while the gowns and caps can take an hour or two.
That afternoon she was fastening buttons to caps — hospital officials had asked for that design so workers can hook the elastic bands of their masks around the buttons, rather than their ears, and ease skin irritation.
The sewing initiative has created a venue for expression and release during this time of isolation, too.
“They’re pieces of artworks in themselves,” Behr said of the masks, gowns and caps. “It’s just stuff that was stuck in closets that’s just really fun and interesting.”
For Doyle, sewing in the name of service has helped her feel productive rather than dismayed.
“You’re helping somebody and feeling not so isolated,” she said. “You feel like you’re part of it.”
