It was a Monday afternoon
at the end of March and the Engineer said to me, “don’t you know the COO at Johnson Memorial?” Yup. I did. And I knew what he meant with that question (20 years of marriage tends to do that). Our family was finally feeling good after all of the children took turns being sick for 2 weeks. With the COVID-19 outbreak headed our way, I had a lot of broody energy that needed to be moved outside of our family for the sake of us all. Isolation is one thing — having 6 kids means it’s not exactly isolation — but feeling helpless and passive is another kettle of fish I don’t deal with well.
I had exchanged a few emails with Rick at Johnson Memorial Health (JMH) after he gave a talk about health care for Leadership Johnson County a couple of months earlier, so there was a chance he would remember me.
He replied right away and expressed the need for more PPE that was “running low,” mostly because a lot of the N95 masks in their system could not be reused and would fall apart in the sterilization process. What masks were on hand were designed for single use and already were being reworn by health care workers and front liners at JMH. A day later, Rick sent an email with a pattern, instructions, and list of materials developed by the anesthesiology department at the University of Florida. On Wednesday, I dropped by and he gave me samples of the Halyard material specified in the pattern. That Friday, I delivered the first 8 prototype masks.
Fast forward 4 weeks
Our humble team of 7 ladies, loosely connected through the homeschooling community in Johnson County, is getting ready to deliver the 500th reusable Halyard mask to JMH this week.
This is a story being repeated as a beautiful fractal across the landscapes of our communities. And you’ve (hopefully) seen many social media posts and articles about other Rosie Riveters and ordinary folks supporting our front line workers. But in this post, it’s not the teamwork or the sacrifice I want to focus on, but the amazing provision and joy through this process that I could not have imagined before it started.
Even before I cut the first piece of fabric
I noticed that the trial fabric from the hospital was a lighter weight than what was called for in the pattern. It was Halyard H300 (printed on the fabric) instead of the H600 prescribed in the bill of materials.
For the past 16 years, the Engineer and I have been writing, editing, interpreting, and consulting others about industry consensus standards on aircraft certification. It’s the foundation of our main business. And before that, in my time as an engineer working for someone else, I was tasked with something called MRB — the Materials Review Board. Basically, engineers in aerospace and aviation work to determine whether parts that do not meet the drawing are usable as-is, or if they can be reworked into being usable. This is a sizeable task in a department where a single polished casting (of which there are hundreds in a single aircraft engine) can cost thousands of dollars because of its material properties. What this meant is that it was really fun for me to hunt down specifications for Halyard fabric and determine for myself whether the advertised properties were going to meet the designer’s intent. I didn’t know that almost 20 years after working Materials Review, that experience would make this task not just easy, but fun! I didn’t know how thankful I would be for this (then-unwanted) skill set.
Along the way, I researched how Bacterial Filtration Effectivity (BFE) is tested (Fascinating! Thanks ASTM committee F23.40 on Biological PPE.) and read up on the different applications for various weights of Halyard. I read a few papers on sneezes and droplet size. The first 8 masks were delivered with confidence in their effectivity and some caveats on their physical durability.
As soon as we knew the prototypes would work
the ability to scale up the operation was front-of-mind. I used Facebook to quickly assemble a team. The response was amazing! So many wanted to help with donations, logistics, loaning unused sewing machines, and of course, the sewing itself.
The next week was a whirlwind of setting up a mini supply chain, determining our capacity, and whether the cutting and other pre-assembly processing should stay in my house or get moved out to the sewist’s individual homes. We also did our best to stay in step with JMH’s PPE status and raw material availability.
God wired me up as a Connector and Integrator, and it turns out that one of my favorite things to do is to help folks get connected to the community in ways that will bring them alien joy.
I call it alien joy, because the kind of joy we get out of being connected in a meaningful way is not natural. It’s supernatural. And unless you have experienced it firsthand, it is very difficult to explain. But doing material control, mini supply chain management, and kitting up parts were all things I had trained for decades ago. This is providence. There is nothing special about me, it’s God who put me in the right place at the right time to engage with these people around this project.
All I did was stay available and say “yes.”
The pleasure of meeting several masked and wonderful directors and workers at JMH is surreal. These people are trained for what they do. And so am I! But not with a degree or even an intention. My life is not my own, even as I exchanged finished masks for raw fabric. (“Right there in the parking lot?” asked the Engineer. “Yup, under the main entrance awning.”)
I haven’t yet mentioned all of the other seemingly small ways my life was set up to be able to engage in this. Some examples:
- The sewing lessons my mom sent me to in middle school to learn the nomenclature and ways of sewing.
- Knowing how to handle feedback from the prototypes that moved us to a different material and gauge for the nose wires.
- My connection to Rick through Leadership Johnson County‘s signature program, which he was a part of last year and I am a part of right now.
- The 5 new rotary cutter blades I ordered 2 years ago after I killed the original blade cutting fiberglass fabric for 2 weeks straight on a work project. These little blades in their little case sat dormant in a strange location that miraculously came to mind just when I needed it to (as I get older, the more miraculous this seems).
- The fact that we already homeschool and the children were excited to help in a tangible way as a family.
- The sewing machine my mom gave me as a gift when our 3rd child was born.
- Our family moved 2.5 miles from JMH just over two years ago.
- All of that acrylic yarn that was just sitting around in my friend’s house after her crafty daughter moved out last year was put to good use.
- The process improvement mindset we have that reduced our yarn cutting and counting operation time by a factor of 10 from the first to the third batch.
- The 5 minute porch drops from 6 feet away and across-the-driveway prayer that breathed life into my soul week after quarantined week.
It is a rare moment
to turn around, survey, and acknowledge God’s provision of the gifts, skills, physical materials, and mental models needed to make something happen quickly, relatively easily, and with a light heart. It amazes me that with the exception of dedicating our time and energy to this endeavor, the whole thing has been painless and a wonderful way to bring people together in a time when we could not physically be together.
Then I turn around and see that the children have all pitched in with their gifts and skills and several of them have grown too. Now the 7- and 10-year olds know how to sew a tidy seam, and all of the big kids can bend the ends of nose wires into tiny loops with skill and efficiency. So when we received a request from our church last week for a quote on 125 masks, 14-year-old firstborn quickly jumped at the chance for a small business deal. He is ready and excited to make all of the masks himself and thinks he can meet the deadline (which he knows will interfere with his plan for the rest of the school year) if they pick him as the supplier.
Just yesterday
I was on a call from a dear friend who works all around the world and now, is working with locals in Togo in West Africa to make masks. There today, masks cost half a day’s wage (!) making compliance with government ordinances cost prohibitive. We talked about the economy of various mask designs, the availability of materials and changes to the design to accommodate what is available in Togo today. Who knows how far this love will multiply?
And through all of this, it is I who am blessed. The provision of skill, time, a lifestyle, these were not of my making. The little decisions we make along the way, we never really know how they impact anything, do we? That is the stuff of faith. Because my God is so good and so kind, I am the one who gets to sit back on a Sunday evening and see that this small slice of life in this small slice of time, which could be dark and difficult, is actually full of beautiful providence.