Office Staff Volunteers To Make Masks At Their Brandon Location

BRANDON, FL —A shortage of masks spares no healthcare agency. Home healthcare workers have the same coronavirus exposure worries as doctors and nurses working inside a hospital. In case a worker is asymptomatic, they don't want to expose their vulnerable clients and vice versa. A local healthcare agency in Brandon creates masks to ensure the safety of their home health aides and clients.

BAYADA Home Health Care's division director, Deanna Kwiatkowski wanted to prevent a mask shortage panic for her employees, and put together an office team to create masks to give to any of their 170 health aides based out of their Brandon center. When she heard that JOANN Fabric and Craft Store offered free fabric on a particular day to help with mask needs, she stood in line at the Brandon location for an hour to get the materials and take back to six of the office staff members that wanted to volunteer to make the masks.

"It was extra important that we protected our clients from any harm as well as our aides," said Courtney Markle, a client services manager. "As an office we felt that making the masks for our aides would be the most beneficial route for everyone involved. Our aides are our biggest asset so we will do anything we can to protect them and get them what they need to do their job successfully."

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The team watched YouTube videos to learn sewing skills because none of them had sewing experience. Markle said she had never touched a sewing machine before, and the instructions that came with the sewing machine made it a simple process.

Client services manager, Shayla Jemmott also tried sewing for the first time as she wanted to help, too. "It took a little trial and error, but we got a good rotation down pretty quick," she said with a laugh.

They did run into difficulty as they couldn't find the elastic straps for the masks as they are a hot commodity right now. Kwiatkowski suggested they improvise by using straps from party hats, and they did.

They have made 100 masks and still counting for their home health aides. Many of them have shown their appreciation to the staff's volunteer effort, and they've received phone calls of thanks from clients for making sure they too are safe.

Check out other local Patch stories about the Hillsborough community coming together to help during the coronavirus pandemic:

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• Hillsborough County Heroes Come Forward During Coronavirus
• Partnership Offers Grant To Downtown Tampa Locally Owned Businesses