With the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, the immediate demand in health care products such as masks has arisen as well.
This pandemic hasn’t stopped the faculty and Fashion Design students from St. Clair College; they’ve chosen to step up to the plate and help Windsor Regional Hospital by producing more than 500 cloth masks for patients. The students and faculty members are working from home, cutting and sewing the donated masks from start to finish.
Although the masks are not industry regulated, they will assist with the shortage of PPE for patients while the Ontario government is actively working with partners to secure additional supplies for the hospitals.
Program coordinator Elaine Chatwood and instructor Lori Moore are directing the charity project.
Chatwood originally had set up a project involving the Fashion Design students creating custom hospital scrubs for MRI department patients and fidget blankets for dementia patients. However, because of the rapidly changing circumstances, that project was put on hold, allowing the students to focus on more pressing priorities such as the masks.
Chatwood includes an annual charity sewing project in her curriculum. “I think it is important to give back and we want to instill that in our students,” she said. “It also gives our students the product development experience of completing a large production run for a client. We want to support our community and health care workers in anyway we can.”
It was a challenge to meet the timeline for the immediate delivery with the supply chain shut down. Thanks to the generous donation from Hello Beautiful owner Lori Moore, this project was able to come to life. Moore supplied the majority of fabric used to sew 500 masks.
Student Zaynab Fuleih stepped up right away and offered to sew the first 200. “I think we all need to stand together through the situation by doing simples things, like making the masks, or giving back to others that need help,” she said. “I’m trying my best to help even more.”
Special thanks go to students Zaynab Fuleih, Nicole David, Suman Bala. Lucy Tomoko, Fiona Liang, Nada Walid, Eman Walid, Kara Bastien, Luming Huang, Kay Norkooli, Anwar Zaidawi and faculty member Dee-Dee Shkreli – all of whom are donating their time to complete this charity project for a very important cause.
