ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — The SOMA 3D Printers Alliance Facebook group has been popping for the last month, connecting people who own 3D printers with one another to make face shields for essential health care workers. They’re not the only ones in South Orange and Maplewood making face coverings, though. The SOMA Sewing Volunteers have made more than 12,000 face masks that they’ve delivered to hospitals around the state.
“I invited everyone I knew who was crafty and they invited everyone they knew,” Jean Ng-Gilio, one of the sewers, said in a phone interview on April 24. “The way to tackle COVID is to help the hospitals. We cannot lose a single doctor or nurse. We can’t let it spread.”
The sewing group, which has members from Livingston and West Orange as well as South Orange and Maplewood, is more than 500 people strong. One of her neighbors, Jeff Levine, works for Atlantic Health System and put the group in contact with hospitals that need supplies.
“All of a sudden it was a start-up with 500 volunteers who didn’t all know each other,” Kelley said in a phone interview on April 26. “People have been so generous. It makes me so happy to go out to my garage every morning.”
The masks have been delivered to Morristown Medical Center, St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic, Hudson Regional Hospital in Secaucus, Bayonne Medical Center, University Hospital in Newark, St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark and Hoboken University Medical Center.
“We’ve been upcycling,” Ng-Gilio said. “A lot of them have been made from old sheets or old men’s shirts. We were ordering 2,000 yards of elastic a week, which we thought was a lot. But we’ve been going through it in a week and a half.”
Many people who do not have essential jobs like health care workers or grocery store employees feel helpless, Kelley said, adding that sewing masks for those who need them has given these people a sense of purpose.
“It’s been really good for people to do something,” she said. “There’s so little information on this awful thing going on, and there’s so much to worry about. People have been good sports, and that’s great because everyone is under so much stress right now.”
Not everyone in the group knows how to sew, so they’re doing other required jobs: cutting fabric, measuring elastic and delivering boxes of masks to hospitals.
“Everyone is so can-do,” Ng-Gilio said. “They’ve used what they could and said, ‘Yes, we’ll try that, we’ll try this.’ We’re tight-knit and connected quickly, and that’s how this happened. It’s been fun.”
The masks that have been made number in the thousands, and the SOMA sewers aren’t planning on slowing down any time soon. To join the group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/somasewingvolunteers.
“We will sew as long as people still want them,” Ng-Gilio said. “As long as people need them, we can make them. Everyone has been so quick to respond.”
Sewing volunteers make more than 12,000 masks for health care workers added by Amanda Valentovic on
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