It started with a text to the gals in the neighborhood. “Hey do you all need masks?” said Rona Bonn, a resident of Rockin’ J Ranch – a 1,064 acre golf-course community located about six miles south of Blanco.
“We were just going to help out the neighbors,” she said, but word got out and this small, neighborly gesture grew into a finely tuned production of a dozen people working together to produce almost 900 fabric masks in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The team called some hospitals, but they couldn’t use the home-made masks.
Rona made one for her mom, Verna Howell, at Blue Skies of Texas, a senior living community in San Antonio, formerly known as Air Force Villages. She then called Shari Proctor, the director of wellness and life enrichment at Blue Skies. Proctor told her Blue Skies was putting together a number of volunteer groups including the resident sewing clubs from both the Blue Skies campuses, located in the southwestern corner of San Antonio and Bexar County. However, Proctor relayed to Bonn they were well short of their initial goal of 3,000 masks, which would ensure masks for every resident, employee, contractor, and the very limited number of family members still allowed to come on either campus due to the no visitation policies for skilled nursing facilities put in place by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The no-visitation rule soon expanded to assisted living and independent living to ensure the safety of those most vulnerable to the virus.
Before retiring, Bonn was the managing director of Sales at RR Donnelley Financial. She called on her professional skills to organize an efficient production and delivery team. Kristy Sorkness, one of the volunteers who also enlisted her sister, Pam, said she was very appreciative of being included in the group and called Rona’ s management and organizational skills, “Outstanding.” Bonn set up a production team of four cutters and eight sewers, mostly women in the Rockin’J neighborhood. However, a few of the men helped out as well, helping to move material and supplies between the homes that had it and where it needed to go as well as assisting in cutting fabric. Word traveled quickly in the neighborhood through Next Door, texts, word of mouth.
“People just saying, ‘What can I do?’ People went through their sewing boxes and gave what they had,” said Bonn. “Lots of people helped out, it was “Great Community Spirit of people who said, ‘Oh, I have something that might help’ and took it to somebody.”
In addition to Blue Skies, Bonn’s team received requests from throughout the neighborhood. Resident Linda Whitlow lives on a central street in the neighborhood, so her house became the perfect distribution center for anyone needing a mask. Master sewer and crafter Gerri Brostrom made child-sized masks and even ones with pockets for filters. Residents also reached out for family members in need and Rockin’ J masks ended up as far away as New York.
Kathie Estrada, the director of human resources at Blue Skies, is a Rockin’ J resident, and she became the delivery van (SUV really) to move the masks to their intended destination. Estrada also turned to her parish at St. Ferdinand Catholic Church in Blanco to ask for volunteers to help make masks. She asked her friend and fellow parishioner, Jenny Donovan, a master seamstress to lead the effort.
“It was an excellent way to help others mostly because sewing is second nature to me,” said Donovan, who learned to sew from her great grandmother, grandmother and mother. “I could sew on a machine when I was five. My mother made my wedding dress from a pattern cut out of newspaper.”
Donovan, a former technical illustrator, also crafted and repaired English saddles and driving harnesses. Estrada knew she would be perfect to lead another group of volunteers toward achieving the modified 2,000 mask goal (1,000 masks came in from a commercial supplier). That group was recruited through an email sent out by Fr. Brion Zarsky, St. Ferdinand’s pastor, calling on parishioners who could help. Donovan, researched several different patterns on YouTube until she found one that was just right. She chose a pattern that provided plenty of breathing room around the mouth, fit snugly across the nose using a small inserted wire at the bridge of the nose to make it adjustable, and even tucked under the chin to ensure a solid fit. Elastic was sold out everywhere, so she used parachute chord for the ear loops and made them adjustable by sewing a small loop at the bottom and tying off the end of the loop. Donovan and her husband, Gene Beyer, went to work cutting out kits of fabric, ear loops and wire, and divided them up among volunteers. She also sewed many of the almost 70 masks her small team produced along with Kathleen Stewart, Mary Lenahan and Estrada.
The first week in April another Rockin’ J resident, Vicki Guidry, who didn’t sew, wanted to know how else she could. Estrada told her the San Antonio and Washington, D.C. Air Force Spouses’ Clubs were writing letters of encouragement to residents at Blue Skies, especially those in skilled nursing and assisted living who were sequestered in their homes, and not allowed under the CDC order to leave the facilities. Guidry said she could add to this effort and got to work. She posted a note on Next Door and Facebook, soliciting volunteers. She soon had several, including one soon-to-be neighbor, Sharon Herbert, whose house is still under construction. Herbert created a beautiful, hand-painted, bluebonnet book marker to be sent along with her note. Guidry’s team included Kathy Surratt, Paula Lundy, Linda Whitlow, Cindy Rose and a few who chose to be anonymous, and they sent 60 hand-written cards to Blue Skies of Texas. Guidry and her letter-writing team expanded their mission further to include the residents at the LBJ Medical Center (nursing home) in Johnson City, and with the help of another resident, Caroline Richardson, to Henry House Assisted Living in Blanco. They have delivered over 138 notes of encouragement between all the communities to brighten the day for residents at a time when their social engagement is limited to their interaction with staff members.
Additionally, Guidry, an alumnus of Providence High School, now known as Providence Catholic School, received an email from the Congregation of Divine Providence, whose nuns taught at her alma mater, looking for help with masks for McCullough Hall in San Antonio. McCullough Hall is a retirement center and nursing home located on the Our Lady of the Lake University campus and is where many of the retired Sisters of Divine Providence reside. She told Bonn about the need, and the Sisters were added to the list of mask recipients. Officials at McCullough asked for a specific style of mask; so Bonn asked Rockin’ J resident Melody Wallace to take on this assignment. Wallace assembled over 100 masks for this project. Guidry collected masks from her neighbor Wallace and mailed them a batch at a time, sending three packages in all to McCullough Hall.
Estrada’s front porch became a drop-off site for both masks and cards. She gathered up both and delivered them to work. One morning on the way to work, Estrada stopped at a Whataburger for a cup of coffee. She spotted a homeless gentleman at the corner of the parking lot; so she added a breakfast order for him to her cup of coffee and delivered it with a homemade mask. The man was grateful for the hot breakfast but much more so for the homemade mask, putting his hands together and nodding over and over; then picking it up, waiving it in the air and smiling broadly. When Estrada told Donovan about giving one of the masks to a gentleman living on the street, Donovan was especially pleased. “He was so happy to have it. That’s what it’s all about,” she said.
The Rockin’ J team under Bonn’s leadership continues to fill small orders for masks in the neighborhood and Blanco organizations as needed such as Good Samaritan and even local restaurant workers. Bonn’s mother, Verna, made all her family’s clothes when Bonn was a child and bought sewing lessons for her every summer. By age 10 she was making most of her own clothes.
When she was working, she lived in Dallas and stopped sewing for years because she said, “Shopping was so affordable there.” But, when her first grandchild, Rachel, came along, she discovered machine embroidery and has been in demand ever since for baby and wedding gifts; birthday party favors; and teacher thank-you gifts. She just started her next project, making an outfit from fabric purchased during a trip to Italy three years ago.
“I’m finally brave enough to cut into it,” she said. She noted, she’d stay close to the mask project and gave significant credit to the rest of her sewers and production crew which included: Bobbi Mouser, Cathy Echols, Karen Dye, Vicki Kelsey, Cindy Rose, Don Wallace, Karen Roesch and Pam Chiverton.
“It’s a great neighborhood we live in, the best in neighbors and friends who come together to do whatever needs to get done,” she said.
From a small spark of an idea, community neighbors united to serve others in their neighborhood, Blanco, Johnson City and on the other side of San Antonio. It’s American initiative, generosity, and ingenuity at its best.
“We’ve had several groups sewing to help Blue Skies provide masks for our almost 1,000 residents and 500 plus employees and contracted staff,” said retired Lt. General Darrel Jones, Blue Skies CEO. “The Blanco groups were the furthest out, yet among our most productive. We can’t thank the Blanco volunteers enough – both for masks and for the thoughtful letters of encouragement.”
Blue Skies’ met its goal through neighbors helping neighbors; it’s the American way.
