Becky’s Covid Work Wins a Small Award
I am so grateful to be recognized for a small part that I could do to help in the Covid-19 crisis.
Here is how it happened. My brother, a musician in Berlin, Germany told me I should sew masks. At that point I hadn’t realized what all was going on with the crisis, but he had two out of country daughter’s that had to fly home and isolate after they returned home. I guess he though that I should do it to earn money. After all I got a note from Etsy that people were desperate for masks, and to sew some to put up on my Etsy site. I groaned and said why would I do something so boring just to earn a few bucks.
After a while, I had heard of 3 people that I know sewing hundreds of masks for free. Then my husband showed me the mask pattern in the newspaper. I made it. I could see that it was made as easy as possible so that anyone could follow. I modified it a bit to improve it and to utilize the supplies I had/have on hand. I made several for family and close friends. My friend said they need masks at the food line where she has been volunteering. So I sew 5 to give her each week because her sister was also making masks for her to bring to the food line.
Meanwhile I posted a photo of a pile of masks I sewed on facebook. Then I got an offer from someone to purchase one if I would make her one. So for each different fabric which I made a mask from, I posted and shared on my church facebook page. These are my lifelong scraps from sewing cloths, purses and quilting. A lot are much more than scraps. Quilters can never part with fabrics. When I started making my violin purses, an almost retired from quilting quilter gave me a box of 50 pounds of beautiful fabric remnants. I shipped it from California to Tennessee. She told me she wanted to cry and drank a bottle of wine after I parted with her fabric.
Anyway, since my church was one of the endless institutions suffering from lack of funds with no one passing the plates on Sundays, I donated all funds to church. I can’t say that I know how much I raised. Most people paid the church directly. But I turned over $470 in funds to the church myself, so if everyone paid what said they would pay, it should have been at least few thousand dollars. After awhile, I got frustrated with the mail system - I mailed a lot of the masks. Three mail personnel told me different amounts of postage to use. A couple got returned and I had to go to the post office a 4rth time and repay postage on the mailings. The local mask mailings were taking longer than mailing masks to California. My supplies were running low. I went through a lot of sewing needles which are expensive, many, many spools of thread, my fabric marker was down to a nub, interfacing… So I kept $100 to pay for these kinds of things. Then and still, my machine clearly needs a tune up which was over $100 when I had it done a few years ago, so I kept a second $100. I decided the time to head to the post office, communicate back and forth with people all day long on facebook messages was taking a ridiculous chunk of my time. I spent two solid months doing nothing else. So I kept a 3rd $100. Now I’m good and will be sending 100 percent again to church, except I plan to keep track and repay myself for postage from here on.
So, about the award? from the “Appalachian Community Fund”.
I say thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
Again, I spent two months solidly making cloth and medical fabric face masks to order, including wedding masks, masks for school teachers and medical personnel, and masks for my friend to bring to her volunteer work at a local food line. I made the food line masks for free, charged teachers and medical personnel only material costs. Most others paid $20+ for their choice of size, style and fabrics resulting in donations of several thousand (at least) for my church, TVUUC. I was given an honor award from the Appalachian Community Fund for this work. This was recognition and a $25 check. I am still making masks, but only devoting one day a week to the process.
