Craft group creates stylish masks for healthcare workers
MELBOURNE: The virus crisis has created a war response from a community eager to improve.
A Sunshine Coast woman has been creating stylish face masks for the community after being asked for help by her daughter who is a nurse at a local hospital.
Halcyon Lakeside Bli Bli resident, Noela Troyahn has not only reinvented the face mask for the Buderim Maternity Hospital, but also for her fellow over 50s Halcyon neighbours during this pandemic.
Ms Troyahn, 76, has been living at Halcyon Lakeside in Bli Bli with her husband Ray for close to two years now.
“I belong to a craft group at Halcyon and we worked together on these masks and gave them to the health care workers, and they found them very comfortable and are very happy with them,” Mrs Troyahn said.
She started making the masks after her daughter reached out regarding a shortage of face masks for the nursing staff at the hospital.
Mrs Troyahn got together with her friend and neighbour Pam and designed and created 50 bright and fun fabric face masks for the hospital staff, fit with pipe cleaners to shape the mask around the nose, filters and extra breathing space.
News travelled fast around the Halcyon community, and now they are hot in demand, with Mrs Troyahn and her friend Wendy Cooper creating orders for their neighbours.
“We were overwhelmed with the amount of people that came fourth in the community to donate materials and so we took orders,” she said.
“Gloria was another person who helped and we’ve sold quite a number of these masks for $5 and the money that was made goes back to our craft group.”
Mrs Troyahn said each mask took about 45 minutes to create.
“I haven’t sewn for a long time, so it’s got me back into the school of sewing,” she said.
“Us girls that have been doing it – we have enjoyed doing something for the community.”
