Religious, clergy, laity respond to need for masks in fight against COVID-19

Last month, as COVID-19 spread across New Jersey places like St. Joseph Senior Center, Woodbridge, where the most vulnerable were cared for, faced major challenges. Many of the staff and residents were infected with the coronavirus. To make matters worse, the center experienced a shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE), especially masks. Little did anyone know it would be a nun who would rally the faithful to help.

When conditions became dire at the assisted living and nursing center, the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, who operated the facility, asked the state for help. Acting in the best interests of their patients and residents, the sisters asked that they be transferred to other facilities.

While the residents were placed in new locations, the Little Servant Sisters stayed behind to look after the center and each other. Since they had been caring for patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and at the time lacked necessary medical resources and protective measures, many of the sisters became infected, so they quarantined themselves.

When news broke of the outbreak at the center, Father Timothy A. Christy, diocesan vicar general and moderator of the curia, reached out to Christian Charity Sister Anna Nguyen, delegate for religious, who heads the diocesan Office for Religious. He asked her if the sisters could make the much-needed masks. Always willing to help, Sister Anna accepted the challenge and not only coordinated the effort but also spearheaded a search for masks calling family, friends and parishioners within the area. She said she quietly wished for 1,000 masks.

Explaining how she started her task, Sister Anna said, “I made phone calls to some of the sisters in my community, to friends in the Iselin-Colonia area, and to a priest friend, Father Peter Tran, pastor, Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, South Plainfield.”

The first day of the mask making project, a parishioner sewed and delivered 10 masks to the Little Servant Sisters in Woodbridge. By the evening of the following day Sister Anna received one box of 1,000 store bought masks. Another parishioner added 250 store bought masks to the box which yielded a total of 1250 masks for the second delivery to Woodbridge. As a result, the dire situation at St. Joseph’s Senior Care Center received immediate relief and the sisters who stayed at the center were helped in their struggle to remain free of the coronavirus.

Within days, Sister Anna’s message about the need for masks was heard by many. “Those I had called, in turn, reached out to their families, friends and neighbors,” she said. Father Tran told Sister Anna to contact Kim Oanh Ho who asked a group of seamstresses she knew to help. Many agreed to dedicate countless hours creating the different pieces by hand and sewing them to make a final product.

“Kim was and still is the woman who drives around to deliver materials, patterns, and other items needed to make masks and to collect the finished masks for me,” Sister Anna said. “Every time she had a carful of masks we met in the parking lot of Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish in South Plainfield. Father Tran, the parish’s pastor, would pray over the masks. We wanted everyone who used a mask to receive divine protection and healing from the coronavirus. I cleaned, packaged, and delivered them all over the state,” she added.
 
As word spread of Sister Anna’s mission, she, too found herself collecting an array of store-bought and hand-sewn masks and started seeing people donating anything they could such as elastic, various types of fabric and even pre-cut patterns necessary to make the masks.

While describing how many people became involved, regardless of the task, Sister Anna’s voice grew  softer, and with a whisper, she could be heard saying “Wow, what a miracle,” as the magnitude of the movement started to become clear.

Even those who were not born with a knack for a needle and thread or just simply lacked the necessary time commitment still wanted to contribute and donated whatever they could to help the cause, she said. To help these individuals, Sister Anna was able to find a simple pattern that enabled additional volunteers to make masks.

Recalling the efforts people made to help her obtain masks, Sister Anna said one story in particular really made an impact on her. When masks were sparse and extremely hard to locate during the early weeks of self-isolation and social distancing, one parishioner got in his car and continued driving west, determined to locate masks. His journey finally came to an end near Philadelphia, where he located a box of 1000 masks that were available for sale. He willingly paid five times the normal amount for them.

Thanks to empathetic people like that man, Sister Anna was able to supply even more masks to senior care and nursing homes run by The Little Servant Sisters, including the sisters’ own Provincial House in Cherry Hill.

Over the past few weeks, Sister Anna’s mission to collect masks, which began with just ten of them, at a recent count exceeded more than 10,000 with more being sewn.

While Sister Anna gazed over the number of masks that had been handmade, donated and even bought at high prices, she began to wonder what the next step should be. By the grace of God, and a “true miracle” as Sister Anna describes it, her answer was to come very soon.

After many calls to Mount Saint Mary House of Prayer and no response, Sister Anna felt a calling to make another attempt. She spoke with Mercy Sister Mary Jo Kearns who put her in touch with another Mercy Sister desperate for masks. The sister’s area only had one mask left and no way to protect the caretakers tasked with safely providing for patients and the elderly. That evening, Sister Anna drove to Watchung to donate a box of 300 masks.

In a thank you letter to Sister Anna, Sister Mary Jo wrote, “This pandemic has brought out the goodness of so many people…may this Easter bless you and all the people involved in this heart-giving project!”