HARLINGEN — From gathering fabric to cutting patterns, a group of ladies felt inspired to utilize their sewing skills to help local health care workers.
In response to the shortage of masks caused by the coronavirus pandemic, 20 residents from the Tropic Winds RV Resort teamed up to make cloth face masks for local first responders.
One of those participating residents is Paula Mellinger.
“There have been lots of articles and YouTube videos about making cloth face masks to help people since there’s been such a shortage,” she said. “I know a lot of people around the country are doing this so we just thought this might be a good activity for us since we’re all pretty much locked down here in the park with not much to do.”
Mellinger said residents from the RV resort are always looking for projects and local causes to help.
“We are blessed to be donating to a local hospital whose CEO was so grateful for any masks we can donate,” Mellinger said. “Way to go Tropic Winds RV Park.”
According to Mellinger, the group has been making masks for about three weeks.
“We got the pattern off of YouTube. There’s all kinds of patterns out there that are available if you go on the internet and look,” Mellinger said. “We got the patterns and started cutting fabric.”
Mellinger said the videos give specific directions on how to cut the patterns for the fabric and how to correctly sew them together to make a face mask.
“Anybody can find how to do this. Just go on YouTube and find how to make these cloth face masks,” Mellinger said. “There’s a lot of videos that show how to make them.”
As of Tuesday, the group had made 150 cloth face masks.
According to Mellinger, 15 masks were given to local firefighters, 15 were given to local police officers, 41 masks were given to local hospitals and 47 masks were given to Tropic Winds RV Park residents to use.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. Our residents are always looking for ways to help the community.” Mellinger said. “We’ve done a lot of different projects for the shelters and various other groups that need things.”
