Photo By Amy Tolson | Andrea Stewart, lead environmental engineer for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities...... read more read more
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – It began with a request from a friend who owns a health food store.
Then another – a restaurant owner concerned about her employees serving customers curbside.
Still more – school nurses, a friend working at a children’s hospital, another living in New York, a neighbor whose father is battling cancer.
No matter the request for a fabric face mask, the answer for Andrea Stewart, lead environmental engineer for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center, is always yes.
“Every mask is free and I will not say no to anyone. The answer is yes,” Stewart said. “This is a time when every yes is a ‘best yes’ and sewing is my way to step up for my community.”
When the coronavirus arrived in the United States and the need for personal protective equipment became evident, Stewart started sewing, devoting her free time to creating fabric masks for people on the frontlines. The requests soon came flooding in.
Stewart’s new normal heavily features sewing to help fulfill the community’s need. She’s up at 5 a.m. to fit in a few hours of sewing before telework and homeschooling her kids, and once her family time is complete in the evening, she’s back at it. Weekends are spent sewing eight to 10 hours a day.
“A friend said that we are saving lives with a needle and thread, but I’m not on the frontlines. I’m just behind a machine,” Stewart said. “I just look at it as bringing a little welcome relief and positivity to my community.”
To date she’s sewn some 300 masks – each prayed over and “made with love.”
“Andrea is such a great example of how our community comes together during a crisis,” said Evelyn Colster, friend and fellow CCDC AvMC employee. “Her act of kindness will have a great impact for those serving on the frontlines.”
The effort has not been without challenges. Stewart had recently donated all her fabric to a local church, and elastic was hard to come by. She asked for donations and her porch filled up with supplies. The same thing happened when the hospital came to her in need of 2,500 masks. Knowing she couldn’t do it all by herself, Stewart pledged 250, and enlisted the help of fellow sewers.
“My community has really stepped up for me and I want to step up for them,” Stewart said. “I’m proud to be working on this initiative with my other sewing friends.”
Although people have offered to pay her for her efforts, Stewart, who helps ensure the safety of the workforce at CCDC AvMC, has remained steadfast in her commitment to providing the masks at no cost. It’s a charity instilled in her by her grandmother, Kazu Kurihara Vaughan, a master seamstress who served her small town of Rogersville through sewing.
“We all deserve to have the necessities in life to allow us to live with a little less fear,” Stewart said. “I teach safety and environmental training to our workforce, and one thing I am required by OSHA to teach is that every employee has the right to understand what they are working with, and that they should be provided with the proper PPE. That’s great in the workplace, but what about in the real world, outside the workplace? We all deserve to have PPE.”
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The CCDC Aviation & Missile Center, formerly known as the Aviation & Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), is part of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, which conducts responsive research, development and life cycle engineering to deliver the aviation and missile capabilities the Army depends on to ensure victory on the battlefield today and tomorrow. Through collaboration across the command's core technical competencies, CCDC leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more lethal to win our nation's wars and come home safely. CCDC is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command.
| Date Taken: | 04.09.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.09.2020 10:59 |
| Story ID: | 366960 |
| Location: | REDSTONE ARSENAL, AL, US |
| Web Views: | 33 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Sewing to save lives; CCDC Aviation & Missile Center employee helps fulfill face mask need, by Amy Tolson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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