‘Everyone wants to do their bit': The volunteers sewing scrubs for NHS workers

Across Colorado, grassroots groups have come together to create homemade masks for the state’s most vulnerable populations to protect against COVID-19. Two of those populations are Denver’s Downtown Detention Center and Denver County Jail. Groups like Dena’s Mask Making Army, the Mask Mavens, and even some AA and sober living communities have rallied together – virtually, of course – to use their sewing skills to fill the mask needs, about 3 masks per person, for those experiencing incarceration.

During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, volunteers across Belarus worked together to collect and deliver personal protective equipment to frontline workers, despite the Belarusian government denying the spread of the coronavirus. Using social media to organize, the volunteers "served as a kind of SWAT team able to bypass the bureaucracy to obtain the necessary equipment."

Innovation labs, makerspaces, and fabrication laboratories are just a few of the entities that helping to address the shortage of personal protective equipment in hospitals by creating face shields and masks. In Madison, Wisconsin, the design for a custom-made medical face shield prototype created by Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab only uses three materials and has been approved by the university's infection control department. To help others join in efforts, the engineers made the design available online and it has now "been picked up by manufacturers around the world."

By recruiting friends and community members, volunteers were able to repair thousands of protective masks. Having been in storage, a large collection of N95 masks had had the elastic dry rot while the filters remained usable. The volunteers sewed new straps onto the masks, intended for Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis in Tennessee.

Citizens across Northeast Georgia are participating in grassroots community efforts to help supply masks for health workers. A Facebook group called, "Mask Making for Athens Area Healthcare Workers," is providing guidance and support in a myriad of ways— from sewing masks, delivering masks, or teaching others how to sew. The group has donated over 2,400 masks to 30 organizations and have received requests for over 4,400 more masks.

In response to a request from a local hospital, a Peterborough resident began using his 3-D printer to print face masks and clear plastic face shields to help protect frontline workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Although supplies are limited, some "makerspaces" are collaborating on the process and sharing materials and designs to keep operations running.

As hospitals and healthcare workers face a shortage of protective gear in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, an army of independent craftspeople have stepped up. Around the United States, they are sewing protective masks by hand, and they are making an impact. For people who are stuck at home or out of work, this is a way they can contribute, and many hospitals have begun relying on these DIY masks that are already saving lives.

Community members across the world are working to make homemade masks to help healthcare workers who are facing shortages. In some cases, one person's efforts have balooned into community-wide initiatives, as people unite to play a part in containing the coronavirus.

A tension fabric structures manufacturing company in Maine has repurposed their facility and transformed their local workforce to create grade-one medical masks for the local hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because the company uses only U.S.-made materials, they have been able to avoid supply chain interruptions and now plans to continue making masks as part of their standard business model even after the pandemic passes.

A group of tech-savy Swarthmore College alumni are helping to get a surplus of personal protective equipment into the hands of the medical professionals who need it most. Tapping into communities where it's not uncommon to have spare PPE due to environmental reasons such as wildfires, the group created a database that pairs donors with recipients. The process has allowed for more than 666,000 masks transferred to health care workers nationwide.