It's not all bad - the Somerville community is stepping up to support hospitals lacking supplies to treat coronavirus patients.

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Local hospitals are desperate for supplies of personal protective equipment, and the community is coming together to help.

On March 24, Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) put out a call for donations of new and unused equipment (PPE), including N95 masks, paper masks (with ties or elastic), paper protective downs, protective goggles, and touchless digital thermometers.

“Like all hospitals during this outbreak of COVID-19, CHA is facing a shortage of medical supplies, including PPE,” read a press release. “This is an unprecedented and unpredictable crisis, and we are pursuing different avenues to bolster and conserve our supplies so that we can meet the critical need and support our frontline staff.”

So, Somerville residents stepped up to help.

Neighborhood support

Prospect Hill resident Renee Scott heard from her neighbor CHA Chief Community Officer Mary Cassesso that CHA was going to need help organizing mask making.

“We have a pretty active neighborhood list serve, so we put out the word that we need sewers, cutters, and supplies,” said Scott. “People love being busy in this time, and though we’ve been refining over the week, we now have people cutting out cloth, passing it off to our ready-to-go sewing team, and so on.”

Right now, the team is using a pattern provided by Inman Square fabric and yarn story Gather Here. They are seeking donations of 100% cotton fabric, such as old sheets, and eighth and quarter inch elastic (best if it can be cut without fraying). CHA sterilizes the masks after receiving them.

“There’s this wonderful neighbor delivering things to people, picking things up and dropping stuff off,” she said. “One neighbor was too busy to help but bought us a whole bunch of cloth, we got elastic from Sewfisticated [Discount Fabrics], and I’ve been making my kids go and drop off things during their ‘recess’ time.”

Though Scott wasn’t exactly sure how many people were involved, she said there were dozens. She is a bit worried about burnout, since CHA has asked for 1,500 masks a week and the neighborhood is making between 150 and 200 a week, but she knows other groups are also helping out.

“It started small but the word is getting out, so we’ve expanded,” she said. “We’ve had East Somerville folks, Davis Square folks, and just people who are on their way out somewhere and drop off sheets.”

Interested volunteers – whether they want to sew, cut cloth, or donate sewing machines or old sheets – can email Scott at phmaskmaker@gmail.com. Sewers are especially needed, and Scott has sewing machines they can loan out.

Artisans at work

The makers at Somerville's Artisan's Asylum is coordinating production on a range of urgently needed PPE. Members are working to arm local health care providers with equipment. They are developing five key products: disposable face shields, reusable face shields, disposable hospital gowns, reusable hospital gowns, and disposable surgical masks.

"Artisan’s Asylum is coordinating our response in cooperation with numerous fabrication labs—as well as a coalition of independent fabricators and innovators—with the same mission: to help," read a press release. "The practice of fabrication has never been more needed. Innovation is critical for addressing the needs and shortages of safety equipment faced by medical professionals during this unprecedented emergency."