Our nonprofit’s mission is to share resiliency skills with at-risk populations in spaces using trauma-informed research. During this unprecedented time, our space has become our homes, and our resiliency skill is making cloth masks for front line heroes. Our founder is a nurse working within her community, and she understands first hand the dire need for masks for all front line heroes. She has transitioned our cause temporarily to support our local communities during this global pandemic. This need led us to create and grow our Masks for Heroes project on March 21, 2020. Since that date, our volunteers have donated and mailed out over 27,000 cloth masks.
Our group has grown to 350 volunteers from across the country, sewing masks for front line heroes in hospitals, grocery stores, nursing homes, warehouses, manufacturing plants, and EMS personnel within 38 states. Our volunteers will continue providing cloth masks as long as they have materials to continue making cloth masks, and we have funding to cover shipping costs.
Anna Campbell is the Marketing and Community Relations Manager with TFTC Gardens. She shares, “our front line heroes continue to show up, day after day and sacrifice their wellbeing for ours, and it is an honor to be able to answer their call for cloth masks. We understand cloth masks are not PPE and support the production and supply of PPE to our medical professionals. During this time, this is how we can show them how much we care about them and appreciate everything they are doing for us.”
We are grateful for organizations partnering with us by donating their time, resources, and funds for our volunteers to continue making cloth masks and shipping them out. We thank Our Lady of La Vang Church in Raleigh, Ash Creek Baptist Church Mask Makers, Sew There Quilts and More, Moonlite Electric & Construction Inc., Lee’s Tailor in Apex, 9 Carvings LLC, ARS Extreme Construction, Lee’s Tailor in Triangle Mall, and Raleigh Little Theater for their support. We are also grateful for our volunteers who are flexing their well-experienced sewing muscles or learning how to sew for the first time.
Trauma Focused Therapeutic Community (TFTC) Gardens welcomes all volunteers who can sew. For more information about our Masks for Heroes project visit our webpage or Facebook group.
Photo courtesy of mask recipients: Montifer Hospital in Bronx, NY