500 Days, 500 Masks

What We Did

In March, 2020, shortages in the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) in health care facilities lead the Center for Disease Control to issue guidance to health care providers about what to do if their supplies of CDC-approved N95 and other PPE ran completely dry in the COVIC-19 pandemic. As a last desperate line of defense for health care workers, the CDC advised, providers could consider using untested and unapproved cloth masks.

Many people in Sisters Country and beyond simultaneously realized that they could apply their sewing skills to help front line health care personnel prepare for the possibility that they would have to rely on cloth masks as they performed the essential work of caring for our loved ones. Aided by social media connections, volunteers affiliated with newly-created and pre-existing groups ended up manufacturing and distributing thousands of masks and other PPE.

Groups and businesses including Central Oregon Emergency Mask Makers, members of the faith and quilting communities of Sisters Country, Age Friendly Sisters Country, Citizens4Community, The Nugget, and Your Store in Sisters solicited volunteers, donated materials, distributed patterns and raw material, and delivered finished products. Volunteers working with one Sisters Country effort alone — the 5 Day/500 Mask Challenge — produced 390 masks in five days. The project was led by Pete Shepherd, a retired attorney who weekly serves as a volunteer judge in a nearby county. With Pete’s leadership, 350 freshly laundered masks from the 5 day/500 mask challenge were delivered to The Lodge in Sisters, an independent and assisted living facility. 30 more went to the office of Dr. May Fan in Sisters, whom one of the 5 Day/500 Mask Challenge volunteers nominated as a recipient. Ten more were distributed to Our House, an adult foster home in Sisters.

The stories told by volunteers were as varied as their work was inspiring. A degenerative eye condition prevented one volunteer from sewing but allowed the volunteer to help assemble kits. Another didn’t have a sewing machine but did have fabric to donate. One volunteer, on learning that an organizer had never sewn anything, reassured the organizer by saying “Don’t worry, honey, you just leave the sewing part to us.” She and her friends assembled 50 masks for the 5 Day/500 Mask Challenge.

Weeks after the spontaneous volunteer networks arose and began producing masks, health care providers all over the state began publishing preferred designs for homemade fabric masks. In Sisters Country, at least, they found a flourishing volunteer network ready to meet their specifications.