Mask project surpasees goal
About 150 volunteers helped make dual-filter face masks as part of the Maui Filter Face Mask Project led by Jennifer Oberg and Russell Van Dyken.
They surpassed their goal of 10,000 masks and delivered the last 3,000 on Friday.
The volunteers began working March 20 at Seabury Hall, which offered its first-floor high school classrooms as work space.
Thirty to 40 volunteers a day worked three shifts to assemble the masks that were distributed to medical professionals and emergency first responders, including nurses, police officers, firefighters, nursing home and home health workers, optometrists, dental hygienists, pediatric dentists and physical therapists.
Van Dyken designed the masks in consultation with the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani Clinic team.
After starting off by making about 20 masks a day, volunteers were producing more than 600 masks a day at the end, said spokeswoman Kim Abrahamson. She said organizers developed ways to expedite and streamline the process, using power tools to cut multiple layers of filter. “I knew it would take a while,” Oberg said. “But the community really stepped up. They have just been so amazing.”