When Nancy Gaus started researching which kind of masks hospitals in the Syracuse area needed to battle the COVID-19 outbreak in the city, she couldn’t find anything. Gaus — who recently retired from a 12-year career as a seamstress — knew that she could put her skills to use to help the community. But she didn’t know where to start.

“I thought, you know, I have a lot of friends that want to sew — that would like to sew masks, that would like to contribute to this effort,” she said. “But we just need a little more clarity, and we need to be able to talk more about the requirements and how to actually do this.”

This led her to establish The Syracuse Mask Project, a website that connects people sewing masks in Syracuse to local health institutions that have a need for cloth masks. Hospitals and other institutions can request masks through the site, stating how many they need and which design they are accepting. It then shows these requests to locals who sew so they know where to drop the masks off.

Gaus spent about five days creating the website before launching it during the last weekend in March. She is very careful about the information she puts on the website, constantly updating it with the most accurate information on making hospital-approved masks, sewing tips and local organizations that are forming sewing initiatives.

Since the website’s release, requests have poured in from places like Upstate University Hospital, Cayuga Health, South Shore Veterinary Hospital, Salvation Army of Syracuse, among others. Gaus doesn’t personally fulfill orders to individual clients and only donates them where they are needed the most, she said.

“Anybody who sews in Syracuse can sew by themselves and donate by themselves in a bubble in their protected house,” Gaus said. “Or, they can reach out to a sewing group that already exists if they want to be part of more of a team.”

During her initial research, Gaus found some clarity once she discovered Syracuse local Beth Eischen’s Facebook video, which showed viewers how to make the rectangular masks hospitals needed.

Eischen, a molecular biologist and biology professor at Onondaga Community College, also runs a women’s clothing and accessories business called Lilipad Creations. In order to combat COVID-19, she has turned her art studio in Delavan Center into a mask-making operation.

COVID-19, which is caused by the coronavirus, has impacted many local businesses like Eischen’s. Onondaga County has more than 700 confirmed cases of the virus and over 20 deaths.

Eischen used her knowledge in biology and brainstormed with health professionals to develop the most protective masks possible. The result was her rectangular mask lined with surgical sheeting.

“This is the field that I teach in, and it was just very clear to me that this shortage in masks was going to be very dire,” Eischen said. “It was going to be very dire for health personnel, essential personnels, people on the frontlines and any essential workers, so I really felt driven to get these masks done and get them in the hands of those who didn’t have them.”

Eischen said she was featured on News Channel 9 for her work making masks for the community on March 25. After her segment on the news, she said her business Facebook page “blew up” with requests for masks from health center supervisors. She stopped counting how many masks she had made at 500, but said she thinks she has made well over 1,000.

Others in the Syracuse area, such as Nancy Volk, are focused on making masks to meet the needs of a specific local organization. With help from members of the community, Volk has provided about 150 masks to the Salvation Army of Syracuse, where she is a volunteer.

Volk is trying to provide masks to those working at shelters, food distribution and daycare centers run by the Salvation Army. She is also making masks for the children who frequent the Salvation Army operations with their families by adjusting the mask size so they stay secure on smaller faces.

“Sometimes people see, I think, the health care workers’ needs pretty easily, and I think we can forget that there are other people out there that also have needs, too,” Volk said. “And I’ve sort of thought if we can keep our frontline workers in protective gear of some type, then our masks like the N95 can be saved for health care workers.”

Susan Coots, director of the Family Planning Service of Onondaga County, also requested masks through the Syracuse Mask Project and social media and has had 200 donations from members of the community. The health care organization, which provides reproductive and sexual health services for low-income individuals — oftentimes for free — has stayed open during the pandemic.

`

It has changed the way it operates, though, screening patients over the phone for COVID-19 symptoms and when they arrive at the facility for an appointment.

FPS has enough surgical masks for its medical staff and is taking mask donations to give to the patients that come into the office. Coots said that the mask donations have come from both her social media post and the listing she made on the Syracuse Mask Project.

“There have been a handful of people that have said family planning helped me at a time when I was unable to afford my birth control, and this is a way that I can give back,” Coots said.

Gaus wants to make sure people are using caution “when interacting with other members of this fabulous sewing community,” she wrote on her website. She encourages people to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for social distancing and to wash their hands often when doing drop-offs and pick-ups.

Gaus said that after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s request for everybody to wear masks when in public, she has received more inquiries from government agencies for masks for their essential workers. These cloth masks will be used in situations where N95 masks, which are saved for higher-risk situations, are not needed, she said.

“This site is there to serve the community as long as it’s needed,” Gaus said. “Once we get through this difficult period, the site may not be needed anymore so it would be time to take it down, but for right now it’s my intent to grow this and make sure it’s serving the people that need the information.”

Published on April 26, 2020 at 2:44 pm

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu