On top of studying for exams and keeping up with their school work, Quinnipiac students are giving back to their communities. Students are sewing and donating facemasks for their family members and healthcare workers to wear as protection against the coronavirus.  

In her hometown of Methuen, MA, Carly Bonanno, a senior this year, says she thought of the idea to sew face masks after her mother told her about the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). 

Bonanno’s mother is a home health nurse, who along with other nurses fear becoming sick from reusing their face masks, according to Bonanno. 

After playing around with a design for her mask, Bonanno began making the masks and has sewed and distributed over 100 face masks. Her mother distributes them at her workplace and Bonnano drops the mask’s off in people’s mailbox to assure a contactless delivery.  

“I’m kind of dropping them off at places if there are people that have reached out to me, to make them,” Bonanno said. 

The face masks Bonanno makes are about five inches wide and 10 inches in length. She is using book cover material because it gives the masks more flexibility. Along with others who’ve made face masks at home, Bonanno realized the shortage of elastic material online and had to look in other places for the solution. 

“I reached out to a lot of the moms from my dance studio, to see if they had any extra elastic lying around from costume pieces or things that they’ve had. And I was actually able to get quite a bit of elastic from that,”  said Bonanno. 

Junior Amanda Addona, who is a nursing major, began to make face masks after receiving an email from Quinnipiac’s Student Nurses Association (QSNA). The email was sent to members in QSNA, and asked that masks be donated to facilities employees and Public Safety staff, as “the need for masks on campus is becoming critical.” 

Addona, along with the help of her grandmother, thought of creative ways to change the mask’s appearance. 

“My grandpa used to work in facilities at Quinnipiac for 25 years so we actually made them out of his old facilities T-shirts,” said Addona.   

Addona delivered the face masks to faculty adviser Donna Diaz to be taken to Quinnipiac earlier in the month. She plans to continue sewing masks for her family and community as they have become items of daily use. 

The QU logo has also been added to face masks being made by Camryn Bernstein. Along with Bonanno, Bernstein began to make face masks after hearing about the needs of her community. 

“It was just hard to hear that there was no adequate amount of personal protective equipment and my family needed a way to go out in public without using the medical-grade supplies,” said Bernstein. 

Bernstein makes her masks using 100% cotton fabric and decided to paint the QU logo after receiving requests. 

“People started asking about Quinnipiac ones [masks] and I kind of thought that it was a good way to express our school spirit, even though we can’t be on campus,” said Bernstein. 

All students have received positive feedback about their designs and they each plan to continue sewing and donating masks in their communities.