Maria Elena Little Endara, of Bennington, is a rising junior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is a journalism student and on the staff of the Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
BENNINGTON – A group of women who met on Facebook have organized into Green Mountain Mask Makers, a nonprofit that has made more than 2,400 fabric face masks to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
Organized by Barbara Fitzgerald of Bennington, the nonprofit group has called upon volunteer seamstresses and donors to sew handmade masks for essential workers and facilities in southwestern Vermont.
“Our group came about on FB (Facebook),” said volunteer seamstress and Bennington local Jenna Hunt. “We all work in different career backgrounds and have been able to contribute. A lot of us never … met before.”
Hunt said the group coordinates through messaging, texts and Google sheets to stay organized.
Hunt joined Green Mountain Mask Makers to help slow the spread of the virus in her community. Before the group started, she was making masks for her family, friends and her 90-year-old grandmother’s nursing home.
“I actually didn’t even know how to use a sewing machine before this, but YouTube and trial and error seemed to work. I think that grassroots local effort is needed in times like these and that we have to help our neighbors in order to help ourselves,” Hunt said.
Volunteer seamstress Amy Anselmo of Manchester said that the effort is mostly based in Bennington County, with seamstresses from Bennington, Manchester and Sandgate as well as other towns in the county.
With the help of local donors and volunteer seamstresses, the organization had managed to make and distribute 2,434 masks as of May 7. Local community centers such as the Vermont Veteran’s Home received 222 masks and the Kitchen Cupboard, a Bennington food distribution center, received 208.
They also advertised on Facebook hoping to find volunteer seamstresses and donations of “unused cotton/flannel fabric, elastic, ties, thread, sewing supplies.”
The call to action was successful and the group currently has 33 seamstresses. Bennington residents who aren’t able to sew have donated money to the group’s gofundme page, which raised over $400 within a few hours, according to volunteer Vickie Lampron of Bennington.
“On Saturday I was able to purchase 30 yards of fabric,” she said. Lampron says she plans to make masks “until folks have got what they need.”
Green Mountain Mask Makers have also put together kits with fabric, elastic and patterns for volunteers. The kits can be requested through social media and email and dropped off or picked up at certain locations.
“The Green Mountain Express (transit service) provides their services for pickups and dropoffs of donations and supplies and delivery of finished masks to facilities,” Hunt said.
“We are encouraging every town to reach out to their health care facilities and essential workers and ask what their needs are and find out how they can help,” Hunt said.
Similar movements have popped up throughout Vermont. In Burlington, the hotspot of Covid-19 in Vermont, members of the community have started sewing masks for frontline workers at UVM Medical Center.
Lampron has had extensive experience with grassroot organizations, such as Rights and Democracy Vermont and the Center for Popular Democracy. She is also a quilter, making her perfect for the job.
“It’s the little folks getting together and deciding they’re going to make a change,” said Lampron about grassroot organizations. The quilter has been collecting fabric over the years and feels there is “no better way to make use of [it] than to contribute to our community.”
“If you know anything about quilters you can’t pass up a fabric stash,” Lampron said.
Lampron decided to start making masks because she prioritizes “loving our community, wanting to make sure that our neighbors and our essential workers and people who may be compromised in their health have a mask to slow the spread of Covid-19.”
She says that despite never having met the other women working with Green Mountain Mask Makers, they have become family.
“There’s like 20 women I’ve never met in my life and we’re sisters,” said Lampron.
The pandemic became more personal to her when a 28-year-old family member tested positive for the virus. Her family member, a registered nurse in California, had been working without a mask and gloves for a while.
“It’s a devastating thing,” Lampron said. “My grandmother used to drive me nuts, she used to say you have to look for the silver lining. Right now, there isn’t any except for the mutual aid groups that are popping up, folks that are volunteering to get groceries.”
