After a call for help from the local hospital, sewers in the community formed what will be known as the 2020 version of a sewing circle – sewing from home and with physical distancing.
Jane Banks, a Wasaga Beach resident, and Jason Burt, pastor of the Nottawa Clearview Community Church, have been organizing cutters and sewers since Easter weekend and their groups of volunteers have crafted about 300 reusable surgical gowns for staff at Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH).
The seed for the mass sewing project was planted when Banks was talking to her neighbour, a staffer at CGMH. Banks said she let her neighbour know if she heard of any needs for sewing, Banks was willing to help out.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic descended, there was a general sense of helplessness,” said Banks.
But that feeling didn’t last long. Banks received a phone call within a day of talking to her neighbour from the hospital’s foundation director Jory Pritchard-Kerr asking for help sewing gowns.
“The next day, four 75-pound rolls of medical-grade fabric for surgical gowns arrived,” said Banks.
She recalls being a little shocked at the size and weight of the fabric, but she got to work.
Two couples used their garages to chop the fabric into manageable sizes. Banks created a pattern and a sample gown and enlisted her friends Janice Green and Bev Noddle to mobilize a sew-from-home circle.
Banks has been sewing for 47 years, but this project was special. She did it in honour of her aunt, Grace Stotesbury, a devoted nurse at CGMH for over 30 years.
“I remember her dedication to the hospital through the years,” said Banks. “She had a Volkswagen Beetle and she went through snowstorms to get to the hospital. She would go no matter what.”
Banks said her aunt was a special lady, and treated Banks like a daughter. And it was her memory that pushed Banks to help coordinate the sewing
“With social distancing ever present…a group eager to help emerged and within an afternoon, over a dozen people from the Wasaga Beach Parkbridge communities of Country Meadows, Park Place, and Hometown were completing gowns,” she said.
Banks estimates there were about 25 people involved in cutting and sewing for the gowns.
Banks said there was a sense of urgency, and she sewed all through the Easter weekend to contribute as many completed gowns as she could.
“At the time there was more of an urgency to it,” said Banks. “There was the feeling we could run out of things.”
She said though Easter weekend was a cold one, the project and, in particular, running between houses and dropping things on doorknobs “gave everybody a warm feeling.”
“It took away that helpless feeling … to be able to help a little.”
Pastor Jason Burt is not a sewer, but he also played a role in getting gowns made for the hospital. As a pastor, he’s part of the local ministerial group. Pritchard-Kerr reached out to the group to ask for some additional help in making gowns.
Pastor Burt offered up the church in Nottawa as a spacious location to cut fabric, and organized a schedule of volunteers who could come - a few at a time - and cut fabric while still having enough space to practice physical distancing.
The cut fabric was packed and distributed to volunteer seamstresses.
Burt said it was a joint effort with congregations from churches in Wasaga Beach, Collingwood, and Stayner.
The group led by Burt produced 200 more gowns for the hospital.
“As our values as a ministerial and a church, we want to be involved in our community,” said Burt. “We take seriously when Jesus says to ‘love your neighbour’…It’s not just theoretical, he wants it to be practical.”
The work of the ministerial’s sewing circle continues as Burt said he’s been approached by the town of Collingwood to make gowns for dentists and other clinics to use once they are allowed to reopen. Burt has ordered more fabric and will be making the gowns available to the people who need them for their business.
“We’re in the gown business now, apparently,” he laughed.
The fabric used for the gowns is rubberized and therefore is able to be sanitized between uses.
Burt said he’s still looking for volunteers to sew gowns, but he cannot accommodate anymore people for cutting fabric.
If you’re interested in helping out, or you need gowns for your business to re-open, contact Pastor Burt at [email protected].
Donations toward the project are also welcome. Burt said the church could accommodate the donations and issue tax receipts and all money received for the project would be specifically designated for material for surgical gowns.
