Woman first makes masks, now hopes to help students during COVID-19 recovery
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Jill Kramer would not say she is a pro with a sewing machine but she honed her skills and started making masks.
The call to action was not a one-way road; she also found a need in her school district so she jumped in to help. The plan was simple make as many mask as she could with the supplies she had on hand.
“For someone who’s never made anything of any use out of a sewing machine, it is surreal to think that this is something that somebody could actually use,” Kramer said.
But in no time, Kramer, with newly acquired sewing skills, was out of fabric.
“Well, I started with the elastic and ran out of that, so iI started attaching strings and ran out of ribbon. My friends and my sister started making T-shirt yarn for me,” Kramer said.
In keeping with social distancing rules, donated fabric was left on her porch by friends along with thread and other sewing notions to keep her mask-making project going.
In no time, with the help a dozen people that included family, nieces and her childern, she made close to 300 masks. About 100 masks went to the COVID-19 homeless shelter; some others went to a pediatric practice and others to a nurse in the neighborhood.
“There is a mom who lives out by us and she is a nurse at Eskenazi (hospital), and their unit is a non-COVID unit, but they still need to wear masks and weren’t getting enough and so we have made about 70 for her,” Kramer said.
What she had left went to doctors.
During her mask making, Kramer says she has found the national COVID-19 pandemic has created additional needs. Kramer lives in Lawrence Township, an area she describes as economically diverse, but she knows the pandemic has hit some lower-income people harder than others.
“The people that live in this community are concerned about the kids and the families our kids go to school with,” Kramer said.
Through a group on social media, she found more ways to help were coming to life, for one the Lawerence Township Foundation provides financial support to students and families that school district cannot. Kramer and others are taking a laundry list of ideas to the foundation.
“They have an LT Cares Fund where they do provide for students throughout the year, and their basic needs and their educational needs, and so we are hoping creatively some of the parents in this area can come up with a solution to continue to help those families that our kids go to school with.”
Kramer told News 8 that the Lawrence North High School food pantry, which is run by teachers and other school administrators, sent out an email recently that says the school food pantry is serving a much higher need than usual and needs help keeping the pantry stocked.
“So, I don’t think it is really an option for a lot of people to sit back and do nothing we are trying to figure out a way to move forward. Schools will reopen and the kids will be back together and we want to make sure all of our families felt supported and had the resources to get to that start line again,” Kramer said.