Volunteers sew thousands of face masks for South Bend students

SOUTH BEND, Ind. --- The Ladies of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College have joined forces with local non-profits sewing thousands of face masks for South Bend students.

To be specific, they’ve sewed and donated over 5,000 face masks since they got started in July.

“I read that there were some people sewing masks for students and I thought well why don’t we do that in South Bend!” said Liz Burman, the organizer of the project Face Masks for South Bend Students.

With the help of Busy Hands of Michiana and Sew Loved, they’ve put in close to 2,000 hours of volunteer work valued at more than $23,000.

Fabric, thread, and other donated material for the face masks coming from the LNDSMC and from Notre Dame Athletics, which donated unused T-shirts from canceled spring athletic events.

Busy Hands of Michiana and Sew Loved also chipped in to donate the supplies.

“We’ve been doing work like this for over 20 years, a lot of things for nursing homes, for autistic children, medical therapy items, but when the pandemic hit, we went all out with masks,” said Chris Dietchley, the director at Busy Hands of Michiana.

The process is simple. Volunteers pick up a sewing kit, get to work, then drop off the finished product.

“Got to to admit, we’re a little tired of sewing masks but we’re going to keep doing it until everybody has what they need,” Dietchley said.

“We’ll keep sewing masks, as long as there’s a need,” Burman said.

The group is always looking for more helping hands so if you want to volunteer to sew face masks for South Bend students all you have to do is join the Face Masks for South Bend Students Facebook group to get started.