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School nurses, crafters donate masks to medical professionals in need

Zoey Maraist | Catholic Herald Staff Writer

Blanca Munguia, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna, makes face masks for medical professionals in need of personal protective equipment. COURTESY

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Something
extremely valuable was left behind in the nurses’ offices of shuttered Virginia
schools: personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, gowns and hand
sanitizer. Bernadette Berset, a nurse at Bishop O’Connell High School in
Arlington, hoped there was a way to get the medical supplies they no longer
needed to health care workers who desperately did.

 

“The media
is saying how direly in short supply all of this equipment is. So I reached out
to Arlington Health Department and they responded,” she said. “(They) told me
there’s a way we can drop off supplies (while) social distancing.”

 

With the
help of Amber Dise, diocesan school health coordinator, Berset reached out to
other diocesan school nurses. Several, including St. Anthony of Padua School in
Falls Church, Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Vienna, St. Mary Basilica
School in Alexandria, St. Agnes School in Arlington and St. Theresa School in
Ashburn, felt they could spare some of their supplies. Berset estimates
together they have about 400-500 surgical masks, less than 100 protective gowns
as well as gloves and hand sanitizer.

 

“As school
nurses, we always try to find a way we can contribute,” said Berset. “I know I
speak for my colleagues in that we’re all very, very sad we’re out of the school
setting, we miss our students. So I’m just happy to be able to do something in
a very small way.”

Bernadette
Berset, a nurse at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, gathers medical
equipment for donation. COURTESY

 

lr berset Arlington’s
Marymount University Malek School of Health Professions donated goggles, surgical
masks, isolation gowns and full-body suits to Virginia Hospital Center in
Arlington. “I was quite literally brought to tears by the generosity and
support shown by the Marymount team,” said Alicia Marconi, a Marymount adjunct
lab instructor and a nurse at Virginia Hospital Center. “My ICU co-workers and
I were so appreciative of the contribution in this time of significantly
increased stress, many unknowns and continued supply shortages.”

 

Crafters
are finding ways to help ease the personal protective equipment shortage by
sewing cloth face masks. During the Iraq War, longtime seamstress Fran
Davenport made quilts for military wives who were caring for newborns as their
husbands served overseas. She sees sewing masks in a time of global pandemic as
another way of using her talents to serve people in need. “I’ve got this gift
of enjoying sewing and it’s just a way I can help others and share a little
love and joy,” she said.

 

Davenport
is a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna and part of the
Our Lady’s Quilters and Prayer Shawl Ministry. Irene Zaso, parish
communications director, is taking the masks the members make and giving them
to parishioners in the medical field who have requested them. So far, masks
have been given to Capital Area Pediatrics, Virginia Cancer Specialists and
Kensington Falls Church Senior Living.  

 

Davenport watched
YouTube video to find mask patterns, and then began to adapt them to her
materials and skills. She used quilting fabric she had, and unable to find
elastic, she asked her husband to cut ribbons for mask ties. Though she didn’t
had floral wire, she subbed in something else she had on hand. “I’m using twist
ties, like you would have from your bread wrappers, for the nose piece because
I read on the internet that it’s better for health care workers to try to keep
the mask closer to their face,” she said.

 

Fellow Our
Lady of Good Counsel parishioner Blanca Munguia has been leaving mask-making
kits in a basket outside her sewing school, the Heartfelt Workshop in Vienna. She
herself has made masks out of brightly patterned cotton fabric and FaceTimed
her students to walk them through the process, too. “It’s been so rewarding to
know that something that was a hobby can be used now in this kind of
situation,” she said.

 

Munguia
knows the homemade masks are not as effective in preventing the spread of
disease as N95 respirators, which contour to the wearer’s face to effectively
filter airborne particles. Some
nurses and doctors wear the cloth masks on top of the N95s, which they may need
to reuse or wear all day. But Munguia plans to keep making them as long as
medical professionals are requesting them. “We are making masks hoping they
don’t need them. We hope that the N95s can arrive,” she said. “But in this
moment if this is all we can do, then let’s sew.”

 

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