Shul members have been stepping up in various ways to help friends, neighbors and fellow shul members cope with the escalation of coronavirus in our area. As we remain in stay-put mode, following the guidelines outlined by health experts and our local and state officials to contain “community spread” of the disease, some outreach has eased the burdens of loneliness and quarantine that deny us the pleasure of human contact.

Shul members are phoning each other, offering welcome hello messages, emailing and texting. Some members have offered to grocery shop, make a post office run, or pick up necessities in drug stores and hardware stores — even make a Costco run for several shul members at a time. All demonstrate expressions of love and caring at a time fraught with danger for many of our elderly members, who are particularly susceptible to the ravages of the disease.

Masks for our community

And then there’s Roberta Garris. Many of us know that Roberta is an enthusiastic quilter, a member of the Eastern Long Island Quilt Guild and the local North Fork Quilters group. And many of us have seen the elegant patterns and artistic quality of her workmanship. Although for now, Roberta and her fellow sewers have put their usual patterns aside, and are turning their attention and needlework talent to community service — making masks.

The sewers are producing masks for children, for doctors and hospital workers, for employees at essential services businesses, such as supermarkets, post offices and pharmacies, and have already donated 250 masks to Peconic Landing for the aides and residents there.

Working from a pattern, the sewers have produced more than a thousand masks — more than 60 from Roberta herself (as of early April). She says she can produce five or six in a day, each one taking up to an hour to produce. Her masks are made of cotton and flannel with some of the supplies coming from her personal storehouse of fabric, other needed items purchased. She acknowledged the generosity of many purveyors, who have donated materials and shipping to aid her and her fellow sewers in their charitable work.

Charity for our shul

Most of the masks are donated. As a result, Roberta was being swamped with requests for masks from friends and neighbors of the recipients. “How much do they cost?” people wanted to know. As long as people were so willing to pay, Roberta decided to fill the requests and help our shul at the same time. In exchange for each noncharitable mask, she asks recipients to make a donation to our shul. Clearly, mask-making is a labor of love for Roberta and her fellow sewers, and a big win for recipients of the masks, for our vulnerable population here on the North Fork, and an unexpected, most generous, and much appreciated win for our shul.

“Every sewer I know is involved in this project,” Roberta said. “We’re all in Maskville.”

Roberta Garris photos