Prior to the coronavirus, when people talked about the issue of food insecurity, it was often a case of a family earning too much to qualify for benefits, but not enough to put sufficient food on the table. Now, many local families are facing the additional challenge of not being able to enter a grocery store because they don’t have the mask that every Pennsylvania supermarket requires.

If you own a sewing machine and have the time, skill, and access to elastic and fabric, you can sew your own mask. And that’s where some Fountain Hill ES teachers and friends decided to step in to help families in need.

The idea came up during a first-grade team meeting, teacher Lydia Stachina explains.

“We were discussing the importance of masks, and that not everyone has access to one,” she said.

Stachina, her mother Lisa, and neighborhood friend Pamela Gauthier had been making and selling masks to raise money for the district’s Backpack Pals food assistance program. First-grade teacher Christine Taylor had been sewing them as part of a project at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church near Pen Argyl. Fifth-grade teacher Todd Maurer’s wife Aleshea had also been making masks for friends and family on her own.

Coordinated by dean of students Garrett Podhyski, and with significant sewing assistance and donations from the Social Ministries Team at St. Peter’s, these five women sewed hundreds of masks for distribution to families during one of BASD’s “grab-and-go” lunch pickup sessions. The team also donated masks to the Fountain Hill Police Department.