Yard after yard, stitch after stitch, week after week, the Miracle of the Masks unfolded.
Merely weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was assigned as a specialist for JustServe, a community service organization. I sent out a plea for others to join in creating potentially lifesaving masks for local senior citizens. The groundswell began and a few volunteers turned into a successful crusade with numerous people who committed to help protect vulnerable residents and healthcare workers with fabric-made masks. The surge of support was staggering!
Stacks of fabric, notions for liners and ties, and unfathomable amounts of hours were willingly and repeatedly donated by selfless people. Almost every single yard of fabric came from the closets of avid quilters and seamstresses, who generously donated their prized yardage they had set aside for future projects. Bolts and bolts of fabric were carefully measured, cut and sewn. As elastic became impossible to source, volunteers became creative making numerous versions for mask ties.
Jaw dropping participation expanded beyond our once-small group as more people asked if they could join in serving through mask-making. There was no time for this motivated, selfless group to complain there was ‘nothing to do’ during the weeks of the state Stay-At-Home decree. The driving force we experienced provided purpose, and the hours of every day were filled with busy, energetic people working, often burning the candle at both ends.
A well-oiled system emerged. Careful not to require any of the enthusiastic volunteers to leave their homes during the Stay-At-Home edict, I made the rounds daily to deliver the incoming mask kits and pick up the outgoing completed masks, then deliver them to the grateful recipients.
Determined to keep each step of the process sanitized, every precaution was taken to safeguard all involved. While stopping at house after house, I thought of each family isolated behind each of those closed doors, tirelessly serving to help others by creating masks. Each person involved, devotedly and unselfishly contributed to the good of the whole. Awestruck by the selflessness and generosity of so many, I was energized to keep things running smoothly.
As I transported the abundance of donated fabric yardage that would become protective masks, my mind traveled back to another pandemic of the 17th century in the English village of Eyam where it all started with cloth fabric. It was the summer of 1665 when a clueless London merchant sent flea-infested fabric to the village tailor, carrying the Bubonic Plague, which proved to be fatal for millions.
Just as we sheltered in place to prevent the rampant spread of COVID-19, the village of Eyam, convinced by a young preacher to quarantine themselves to head off the deadly illness, cut themselves off from the rest of the world to stop the rampant spread of the horrific disease. Like us, their isolation was meant to protect the lives of others and contribute to the good of the whole.
That fabric in 1665 resulted in deaths. My greatest hope was that the fabric I was carrying would protect lives as the masks would provide protection from the deadly virus that has plagued our entire world.
Honored and humbled, I was privileged to witness such an astounding group of people, joined in a cause of generous service that affected the lives of thousands of people they would never meet, was life changing. These masks that were created, yard after yard, stitch after stitch, week after week, with selfless love, were delivered to a variety of people; senior citizens, hospice patients, firefighters, health care professionals, refugees, state police, county and state employees, day care and others. I witnessed how service during hard times blesses lives.
The happiest people are those who lose their lives in the service of others. Irrevocably the best medicine for this pandemic despair was, without doubt, service.
Read more of Idaho Falls Magazine's July issue here.