Alliance Theatre Receives $25K Donation To Make Masks

GEORGIA — The Georgia Power Foundation presented a $25,000 donation to the Woodruff Arts Center last week in support of the Alliance Theatre’s coronavirus response efforts. While the Alliance Theatre has closed its doors during the pandemic, their costume shop, props and production staff are putting their unique skills to work and creating fabric masks for medical personnel at Emory Healthcare’s five metro Atlanta hospitals in Decatur, Midtown Atlanta, Johns Creek, Sandy Springs and Lithonia.

Currently, 19 Alliance Theatre artists are sewing on average 300 masks daily. With the donation from the Georgia Power Foundation, the artists can make 1,500 masks a week to support front line workers and Atlanta’s medical workers during COVID-19. The fabric masks sewn by the Alliance artists are designed to fit over and dramatically improve the lifespan of the medically-approved N95 respiratory masks.

CDC on Homemade Cloth Face Coverings

CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies), especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

CDC also advises the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.

Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.

The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.