During this time of crisis, I’ve constantly felt the need to do something. My own course work, lit review, and even hobbies felt like they weren’t purposeful or productive.
That’s part of what feels so stressful about a pandemic: the best thing you can do is stay home, but when the world is telling you to be scared you just want to do something active about the fear.
One of my hobbies is sewing, and over the years I’ve amassed several scraps of cotton fabrics that I hang on to “just in case”. It turns out that “just in case” is right now. The CDC is now recommending that everyone wear masks in public places, but because of the high demand for medical-grade masks, to leave those for health-care workers.
Cotton is the recommended fabric for making your own fabric masks to wear. These masks are not PPE, but they can help prevent spreading the virus if you are pre-or a- symptomatic. For healthcare workers, these fabric masks can be worn over medical-grade PPE to help extend use time.
I told my friends over at @ashfordmanor about my project, and they stepped up by helping to cut pieces of fabric for over 60 masks for me to sew for donation to our local hospital and grocery store workers. I’m using the pattern provided by JHU on their COVID-19 information page (Click Here!).
Working on this project has allowed me to feel helpful. There are other ways you can help others too: donating to a food bank, calling friends and family who are isolating alone, or donating money to healthcare workers. The most important thing though is to stay home to prevent virus spread.
Thank you to Liesl Krause (@sourkrause94 on Instagram/Twitter) for today's post!
What are YOU doing to feel more in control of this whole situation? Let us know in the comments, or tag us (@PhD_Balance) in a post/story on social media so we can share with everyone!