In response to the shortage of personal protective equipment and health agencies urging the public to wear face coverings when social distancing isn't possible, many of those with an aptitude for needle and thread have turned their talents to making masks.
The Sentinel-Record first spoke with Hannah Mills, owner of the Hot Springy Dingy, 409 Park Ave., on April 7. After closing the doors to her gift shop voluntarily, Mills began making masks because she wanted to "help flatten the curve" in the area. Since then, Mills said she received an overwhelming response.
"Our Facebook is over 20,000 accumulated hits, and our orders are well over 5,000, but it's the community response that has me wowed," Mills said.
Mills is just one of many seamstresses who have taken to their machines to keep the community covered. A group of six women, most living in the same neighborhood, decided to band together and raise money for local charities by selling the masks they make.
Debby Edwards opened her home to Kay Fleischner, Karen MacDonald, Linda Smiley, Renee Stacks, and Rhonda Frederick, and they began making masks. To date, Edwards says they have made over 1,200 masks.
"In two weeks, we made over 600 and probably had at least 100 in process at various stages," Edwards said.
"We're using things we've had and using fabrics we had. Someone even gave us curtains." Each mask has a pocket where an extra filter can be inserted. Once they are completed, the masks are placed in a clear plastic bag.
"There are many ways to make them that probably have fewer steps, but this (way) has worked best for us," Edwards said.
Edwards originally placed the masks outside her house on a folding table, asking for a $5 donation for each one. All the money raised from selling them went directly to Cooperative Christian Ministries and Clinic and the Hot Springs Area Community Foundation. So far, the group has raised close to $3,000, but the numbers may be higher because some people are sending donations directly to CCMC and the Hot Springs Area Community Foundation. They have also donated 600 masks to different organizations across the state.
For career seamstresses Sheila Huddleston and her daughter Marti Kaye Conrad, making masks for the community was a way to adapt their business model and keep occupied during uncertain times.
"We put everything prom related away March 20. I looked at it because on a Friday, we decided we weren't doing appointments anymore. It was getting serious, you know," Huddleston said.
Initially, she thought no one would want to purchase the masks and was apprehensive about making them.
"I thought, 'I don't want to make a bunch of these and nobody want them. That's ridiculous. Nobody's going to want these.' But we started making them and then it just got crazy where people found out and they were wanting 25 and 50 masks," she said.
Huddleston and her daughter are joined by two of their close friends, and together, they have donated masks to people working with "the ambulance service, Montgomery County nursing homes, several nursing homes and rehabs here in Hot Springs, a kidney clinic, the heart clinic here in town, and the police department."
She also has masks available for the general public, although she has not put a price on them.
"They give us donations based on whatever they can do. Some people don't pay anything and some people have paid us a lot, which allows us to go to Walmart and spend hundreds of dollars restock on supplies. It was awesome," she said.
Each seamstress says they received wonderful support from the community. Mills had a sewing machine donated, Edwards said a call for fabrics she put on a neighborhood Facebook group led to several donations of "odds and ends of ribbons and fabrics," and Huddleston has had donations of both supplies and large funds.
"People from 9-90 have volunteered to help in whatever way they can," Mills said. "People are picking up raw fabric, taking it, and a pattern home and cutting out the mask pieces. Businesses that are closed have brought scissors to work. One business has turned their shop into a sewing factory. The Young Men of Distinction have brought back an unbelievable amount of cut pieces and even some completed masks."
"People can't sew, so they're giving us money for fabric or they send us all of their elastic, you know. It's awesome. You never know what's coming in the door. ... When you've made 100 out of plain, blue fabric, you're really happy to see a new pattern," Huddleston said.
"I am humbled and awed by the way this city has come together to create this mighty 'social distance' army to 'cover' Hot Springs," Mills said
Local on 04/27/2020