Like many of us, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to shutdowns in March, Melissa Wainwright asked herself, “What can I do to help?”
“There’s plenty I don’t know how to do,” said the team lead for Columbia Gas of Ohio’s integration center. But one thing she could do? Sew.
Although Wainwright hadn’t picked up a needle in years and didn’t even have a sewing machine, she tried her hand at stitching a mask. That first one, she admits, “wasn’t the greatest.” But she got better—and faster. She posted a photo of one of her masks on Facebook, and requests started to flood in. For each mask she sold, she donated another to essential workers and families in need.
She has since given bundles of her triple-ply cotton masks in fashionable colors to post office and grocery store workers, members of her church family who are volunteering at homeless shelters and food banks, and children, including local high school graduates.
She’ll often spend six hours a day working on the masks, and as of August, she’s sewn more than 1,100, wearing out two sewing machines in the process. Her husband, Shawn, gave her a third—“a heavy-duty one”—on Mother’s Day. “He absolutely keeps me motivated,” Wainwright said.
So does the knowledge that she can give back and help keep her community safe.
“Working in emergency response in the gas segment, we are all about safety—safety in the field, safety in the office,” said Wainwright. “We preach safety, we live safety. It’s one of those things—it was just like, ‘We need to be safe.’”