Sidney Locals Come Together to Make Masks for Essential Workers

While grocery store workers across the country are stocking shelves and ringing up pantry items for a daily crowd of customers, they have been facing a higher-than-average risk of exposing themselves to the coronavirus.

Andrea Yadon, and other local residents, recognized the risk that essential workers are facing in the area; she was looking for a way to help essential frontline workers that are facing a short supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

She obtained a medical facility approved face mask sewing pattern from Billings Clinic, Billings. After she got the pattern, she put her self-taught sewing skills to work and started making face masks to give to area essential workers at no charge. So far, she has sewn well over 900 tight-woven cotton facemasks. She started constructing the homemade masks on March 20 and has been busy cutting out material, ironing, and sewing face masks ever since.

"When I sewed my first mask, I had my husband try it on, and then I tried it on and figured this would work and have been sewing masks every day since then," explained Yadon.

So far, she has provided handmade masks to essential workers at Sidney Health Center, Reynolds Market, Reese & Ray's IGA, Sidney Post Office, Neu's SuperValu, Powder Keg, Cenex, and many more people from around the area.

"I have been so busy sewing masks, that I really have not had time to do anything else. My husband has even taken over cooking and cleaning," chuckled Yadon.

Homemade face masks are considered supplements to PPE by the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC). The CDC encourages the use of cloth face covering to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. They recommend wearing cotton handmade face masks in public settings where other social distancing measures are challenging to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies), especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

To assist essential workers in your community and nation-wide with similar efforts, information on the mask design, including specifications for a particular mask pattern, you go online to http://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/.