Other members of St. Andrew’s Sewing For Others ministry have been busy using their talents and available time to help slow the spread of the new coronavirus:

• Joellen Roffman worked with Randy and Peggy Hausler and others to collect supplies to get into the hands of sew-ers and quilters.  
• Lucy Koontz cut material for 114 face masks from the quilt fabric she has bought over the years. (They were given to the Oaknoll team to finish.)
• Maggie Dameron has been making masks for family and the Iowa City Free Medical Clinic.  
• Janice Hining took 40 masks to her church, Sharon Center United Methodist, and delivered another 29 to the local chapter of Days for Girls. 
• Margie Loomer has sewn about 50 masks, giving them to family, neighbors, nursing homes, and the Shelter House.
• Marylu Watkins has three generations of her family working on masks. They started out making about 30 for a pediatrician’s office, then they began making masks for two nursing homes, two pharmacies, a medical clinic, and a physical therapy office. (They have an order for 300 masks for the steel mill in Wilton.)
• Kaitlin Lamkins has cut masks for Mary Roffman-Nixon and Joellen Roffman to sew for friends, family, and the Wayne County Hospital in Corydon.
• Ginni Gibson has made masks for her family and about 50 for the Iowa City Face Mask Project.

St. Andrew member Janice Baldes also has been pulling on her professional and entrepreneurial experience to organize Face Masks for Johnson County Iowa/COVID19.

“I took on a role of coordinator and made sure that we had a source to get the masks to and that the style of the mask matched what was needed,” Janice said.

Over the past month, Janice has helped develop kits for masks to distribute to more than 40 sew-ers -- including Twila Finkelstein, Kathryn Wallace, Becka Simpson, Beth Jorgensen, Kathy Duys, Tamera Penning, Susie Engelhardt, and Kari and Emma Gibson. Another dozen mask-makers are using their own supplies and following the written and video instruction Janice and others have helped compile.

The effort already has resulted in more than 1,000 masks being donated to UI Hospitals and Clinics.

Janice says she is amazed and inspired by the “huge exchange of love” happening between the people who make the masks and the people who receive them. She gets regular reports on how overwhelmingly the recipients are to learn there are so many people making masks to give to them.

“So they feel loved, and then I turn around and I post their message to our Facebook group, and the seamstresses get totally filled up and want to keep sewing,” Janice says.

Mary Mixdorf likewise reports that Oaknoll’s mask-making ministry has changed strangers into colleagues and friends.

“At first, I didn’t know many of the people on this team,” she said. “I may have recognized some of the faces, but I didn’t know them well. Now, I know them very well, and they have personalities like I couldn’t believe.”

It’s unclear how long the current need for face masks will continue. The Centers for Disease Control recommend wearing cloth face covering in public settings where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain. But St. Andrew’s sew-ers stand ready to ramp up or dial down their efforts as needed.