- June 12, 2020 Social Justice
Faces at the Border Find Help as Hundreds of Face Masks are Donated during Pandemic Outreach
By Mary Flick, CSJ
At first, nothing came. Then one or two at a time appeared in the basket between the motherhouse front doors. Now boxes arrive daily. They contain people’s love and concern in a variety of patterns and colors. Over the past several weeks, more than 600 hand-made face masks have been received by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis to help protect those waiting at the border from the spread of the coronavirus.
Sister Maureen Freeman, a resident of Terre Haute, Ind.iana, has made numerous trips to Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, to help welcome the recently arrived migrants and refugees. As the spread of COVID-19 intensified and the number of those infected grew, she saw another way to help while confined to home. She asked sisters, associates and friends to help her collect face masks for use by those at the border. She enlisted Sister Ida Berresheim as the St. Louis contact.
While the numbers of refugees arriving in the United States has become a trickle the past four months, Annunciation House has opened two residences in Juarez, Mexico to serve some of those waiting for court hearings. Hundreds more wait in tents, coping with hunger, crime and now, the global pandemic.
Meanwhile, Americans have hunkered down under various stay-at-home orders and phased reentry these past months. Some have found an outlet in the making of face masks, now standard apparel when one ventures out in public. So when the Sisters of St. Joseph's call went out, sisters, associates, students and friends responded.
On one day alone in early June, S. Ida received in the mail four boxes of masks: one from associates in Kansas City, one from a friend in Memphis, and two from sisters in Colorado.
She tells of two boxes she received in May, each bearing almost $9 in postage and together, containing more than 50 masks. They were from a brother and a sister, both students at Lindbergh High School, whose mother works at Fontbonne University. “I wrote them each a personal thank you note,” Ida recalls, “to let them know how much their contribution means.”
“People are willing to do good. So many are constrained in their homes,” she said. “It is such a wonderful thing to help somebody.” It’s not only masks S. Ida has received. She also has received donations totaling $250 for the cause, which she is sending directly to Annunciation House.
S. Margaret Guzzardo has her own “campaign” for face masks underway. A friend of hers in Kirkwood sent more than 100 masks. And Margaret has three more friends in Kankakee, Ill., where she is presently living, who are sending another 100.
“Margaret has said she can’t help with other needs because she is under lockdown, but she can help with this,” S. Ida says. “That’s the case for many people today. It’s been a very generous outpouring.”
The generosity has not been without cost. The hundreds of cloth face masks have required loads of laundry and hours at the ironing board for two other sister volunteers, Sisters Barbara Moore and Mary Ann Donovan, who are helping to ensure that the face masks are properly laundered before they are sent south. A recent load of laundry required a special devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots, when the strings of dozens of masks became entangled. Sister Pat Murphy lent a patient hand to that special need.
S. Ida follows up her receipt of the boxes with has added her own note of thanks to the donors. “The lockdown is a challenge for all of us,” S. Ida says. But this outpouring of kindness by so many, she says, is “a way to put the lockdown to good use.”