\Sally Steen, organizer of the Masks for Marquette movement, gives out handmade masks to UP Health System employees during a “Flash your Badge” event on Saturday. The group of local residents and businesses have banded together to sew more than 18,000 protective masks for local health care, emergency response and essential workers. (Journal photo by Lisa Bowers)

MARQUETTE — In late March, a Gwinn woman decided to put her concern for local health care workers into action.

What has happened since can only be described as a movement involving hundreds of volunteers and over 18,000 handmade protective masks.

Sally Steen said she was made aware of health care workers’ concerns when she went for a medical appointment at UP Health System on March 19.

“It was just before the shutdown happened. And even though our temperature was taken before we walked into the hospital, the X-ray tech we worked with was really upset. I realized right away that she was just really scared. …She talked about her family and she talked about how she had a 5-month-old baby… so I told her that I completely understood how she felt,” Steen said. “I got home that night and I watched a news show and it was showing how out in Washington state the nurses were making masks out of paper supplies and staplers and tape because they didn’t have PPE (personal protective equipment). So, I am laying in bed at night and I am thinking, OK, … I can do something about this.”

A shortage of personal protective equipment such as gloves and N-95 masks has been a problem faced by health care and other essential workers throughout the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steen was so committed to doing something that she bought $1,000 worth of elastic before she had even started the group.

Steen said she started looking for a mask pattern approved by local health administrators and teamed up with Marquette resident Terry Wessels via Facebook. Wessels had also been looking for a way to get PPE to health care workers.

“I had talked to her and said … do you want to join up and try to do this together and she was willing. And that Friday, I talked to the infectious controls director at both of the hospitals and said, ‘You know, if we do this, could you use it?’ and they both said yes, that there were ways they could use them with an N-95 mask or in non-COVID areas.”

The masks are dropped at sites around Marquette County and then picked up and delivered to Steen who counts and washes each one to be sure they don’t fall apart.

Steen and her Masks for Marquette group are still hard at work making and distributing masks. Steen and two other volunteers brought a thousand masks to distribute to UP Health System employees during a “Flash your Badge” event on the corner of Seventh and Spring streets. Although thousands of masks had already been delivered to staff for use in both Marquette County hospitals, employees were not permitted to bring masks used in the hospital home.

“We wanted to give one, at least, to each health care worker so they can go grocery shopping or get gas, or pick up their kids or whatever they might need it for,” Steen said.

When asked when she will stop, Steen said she expects the movement to end gradually. “We have already been asked to possibly make masks for some groups.

“As long as there is a need, I think we will keep sewing,” she said. “We may slow down to a point where we are making the masks for specific groups as they order.”

More information on the effort can be found on the Masks for Marquette Facebook page or donations can be made at. https://www.gofundme.com/f/masks-for-marquette?fbclid=IwAR3jocn3-HfGJ3ICv_Zv8cndTyAj2IMfGJtU-_w4bYWbyLR35K5CfHkOFQs

Lisa Bowers can be reached at lbowers@miningjournal.net.