MITCHELL, S.D. (KELO.com) — The Avera Faith and Community Engage program is seeking volunteers across the region to help craft cloth face masks for use in hospitals and clinics.
Molly Sutton is the Director of the Avera Queen of Peace Foundation. She says the guidelines, instructions, materials, and patterns are included in an online story, “How Can I Help Sew Masks for Health Care Workers?”
You can find it at AveraBalance.org.
Creating cloth masks for patients and employees now can help assist in the further conservation of personal protective equipment during this time. These homemade masks will help extend what’s available to providers, nurses and others.
A spokesman for the Avera health care system says they are NOT short on masks, but they have received an outpouring of requests from volunteers who want to help in some way.
In the Pierre/Fort Pierre area, there is a large storage tote located in Pierre in the Helmsley Center vestibule where homemade face mask donations can be dropped off.
Avera Foundation leaders from Aberdeen, S.D.; Marshall, Minn.; Mitchell, Pierre, Sioux Falls, and Yankton, S.D. will coordinate drop-offs or pickups of the masks.
(JP Skelly, KORN, and Jody Heemstra, DRG News, contributed this report.)
