Sewing stars: From Olathe to Lee’s Summit, they’re stitching to keep others safe

Face masks are fast becoming the most functional fashion item we’ll see all year. Numerous local groups across the metro, spanning everywhere from Lee’s Summit to Overland Park, have stepped in to provide the fabric-protective equipment for those who don’t have the option of staying at home.

Olathe resident Kelsey Reed, 29, normally spends her days as an event planner with her best friend and business partner Taylor Jezick. With social distancing putting that on hold, the two turned their attention to helping the community.

Their Facebook group, FaceMask donations Kansas, has more than 100 members and produced about 2,000 masks in its first four weeks. They have patterned their masks on a tutorial given to them by Olathe Medical Center.

“Instead of something that’s just pretty or functional, we’re doing it for protection,” Reed said.

Not everyone in the group sews. Some cut fabric, others iron it, while another handful gather donations of materials. Together, they make it all work.

Reed also partnered with a group of 10 sewing enthusiasts connected with Ascension Catholic School in Overland Park who typically make prayer blankets.

“They have been absolute rock stars,” she said.

The group is distributing the masks to hospitals, such as Olathe Medical Center, Research Medical Center, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Menorah Medical Center and St. Luke’s Health System, as well as senior care facilities, clinics, the YMCA and even the Jackson County Jail. Their list includes numerous facilities all over the city.

Reed picks up masks from people’s porches and delivers them to this multitude.

They accommodate places wanting to avoid latex by providing some masks without elastic.

When they’ve filled all their own requests, Reed said, they help fill orders for other mask-making groups.

Another group increasing mask availability in the Kansas City area is One Mask at a Time. Its co-founders, Judy Kelly-Daugherty and Trixie Hall, were stunned when its membership ballooned to 860 in the first two weeks.

“It was just so fast that it was really hard to organize,” Kelly-Daugherty said.

Kelly-Daugherty, who lives in Blue Springs, has it down to a science now, with hubs set up around the metro in Kearney, Blue Springs (serving Raytown, Independence and Lee’s Summit), Odessa (also serving Belton) and Overland Park. Each hub has its own set of drivers, fabric cutters and sewers.

Although its first goal was providing protection to healthcare workers and first responders, the group has come to have a secondary purpose.

“We were helping people have a reason to get up in the morning, because they were so depressed and anxious, and this gave them a different focus. It gave us a community,” Kelly-Daugherty said. “People could talk on the Facebook page. … We’d even pray with each other.”

Gathering supplies has meant being creative at times. When it became difficult to find elastic, they bought up flat hair-ties from the dollar store. To make an additional barrier in the masks, they’ve sewn in a pocket where one can insert a coffee filter.

Each mask is approximately 9-by-6 inches with three pleats in front. In addition to those, One Mask at a Time also is making surgical caps for healthcare workers.

They’ve distributed their masks across a wide swath within and beyond the Kansas City area, from Cameron to Fort Scott.

Recipients have included the City Union Mission, Truman Medical Center, North Kansas City Hospital, Providence Medical Center, Newhouse Domestic Violence Shelter, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Clay County Sheriff’s Department and the Kansas City Health Department.

Though not all locations are hospitals, but people those in need of masks work face to face with others. At Hilltop Residential Center, a youth residential treatment center operated through the Jackson County Court, “these people feel really forgotten. I had some girls make some phone calls, and they were so excited that we thought of them,” Kelly-Daugherty said.

Not every group is based around social media. Many existing sewing groups, like Lenexa’s Holy Trinity Threaders, have switched their focus from the usual projects to mask-making.

“It just fell in line with what we normally do,” said Ann Piette, the group’s founder.

They’ve given their masks to Lenexa’s police and firefighters, in addition to local clergy. Piette said nurses who have received their masks have used them as a washable cover for their N-95 masks to make those last longer.

Whenever possible, they try to use fabric that has a fitting theme. If that means finding fabric with firetrucks on it, one of their members probably has it.

“The ladies in the Threaders, it’s like men in a hardware store. They can’t leave a fabric store without picking up fabric. We have stashes,” Piette said.

Even the MakerSpace at the Johnson County Library has gotten in on the action, using its sewing machines and 3-D printers to make fabric masks and face shields for local workers.

This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Sewing stars: From Olathe to Lee’s Summit, they’re stitching to keep others safe."