Miguel trades mat for masks
Bears senior wrestler, family doing their part to help during coronavirus pandemic
Baldwin High School’s Jahnea Miguel sews masks at her home in Wailuku. Miguel, a two-time state wrestling champion, and her family have been producing face masks for family members as well as others in the community. Photo courtesy of Jahnea Miguel
Jahnea Miguel estimates that she has produced as many as 40 face masks a day in the last week.
Baldwin High School’s Jahnea Miguel sews masks at her home in Wailuku. Miguel, a two-time state wrestling champion, and her family have been producing face masks for family members as well as others in the community. Photo courtesy of Jahnea Miguel
Jahnea Miguel estimates that she has produced as many as 40 face masks a day in the last week.
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As a two-time state wrestling champion and freestyle national champion in 2018, Jahnea Miguel's toughness cannot be questioned.
During the coronavirus pandemic, however, the Baldwin High School senior has found a new challenge and made a difference in just over a week from behind the family sewing machine.
"At first, I was just, like, bored at home, and then me and my mom went to Wal-Mart and I just wanted to make scrunchies to start doing something," Miguel said via phone Wednesday. "Then, I was doing that and my mom said, 'Hey, let's try something new. Try making face masks for people.' "
In just over a week, Miguel has sewn more than 200 masks, producing as many as 40 a day. She used a sewing machine for the first time on March 30 -- she learned the face-mask design by watching a YouTube video.
"We just started sending to family members on Oahu, I never did it to make money, I was just doing it just to do something, just to not be bored," Miguel said. "My mom would post on (social media) to show people what I was doing every day. Then people just started, like, asking, 'Oh, are you selling?' "
Mostly, the Miguel family gives away the masks. They are taking donations of material and money to offset their costs.
"Wherever we go we're going to donate, like Wal-Mart -- we just went yesterday, so we're going to donate a couple to some of those workers who don't have masks," Jahnea Miguel said, adding that she had lost exact count of how many masks they've produced. "I've been doing this for the past week and I just learned how to do it.
"It just keeps me busy, like I lose track of time. It goes by so fast now that I've been doing this all day. I've been just trying to get it done because we have orders, so I just try to get done whatever I can."
Mom Blossom Miguel is handling the distribution of the masks and coordinating the operation while Jahnea sews. Dad Warren Miguel also got in on the encouragement.
"She was doing scrunchies and she mastered that and then I just said, 'Why don't you do something more challenging?' " Blossom Miguel said. "Besides just me, her dad kept telling her 'make a mask, make a mask' ... she took it upon herself to go up on YouTube, see the steps of what to do, and she ran with it once she learned."
Jahnea Miguel says she is most likely done with wrestling and wants to attend cosmetology school after graduating from Baldwin. She didn't close the door completely on the sport where she won state titles for the Bears in 2017 and 2018 and a national crown at 138 pounds in Fargo, N.D., in 2018.
"If I change my mind, maybe like a year break -- if I change my mind," she said. "I'm glad that it's over with and I accomplished what I accomplished."
The Miguels have been sending the masks around the state, and Jahnea even received a thanks on Instagram from a medical center affiliated with the University of Maryland.
"They commented and I was, like, 'Wow,' " Jahnea said. "I just like helping people, everywhere I guess, because this whole corona thing is getting so crazy and scary. A lot of deaths and it's just super scary. I just want everyone to stay safe as much as they can.
"If they have to go out, they have to use masks now. ... I see some of the workers, they don't even have masks, so we're trying to finish our orders and then get essential workers their masks as well."
Their material to make the masks is running low, Jahnea Miguel said.
"We have enough right now to finish our orders and a little bit more," she said.
Since Jahnea began, the work has grown into a mini-family business, including younger sisters Jalyssa, 15, and Jahlia, 12, who each help measure the material pieces before it is sewn into the full mask.
Jahnea said the "quality time" with her mom has brought them closer.
"We're doing something good for everyone," Jahnea said. "At first, it was only me, but since there were more and more orders coming in, she would prep it for me, cut it out for me, fold it, and I would do all the sewing.
"We only have one sewing machine, so I just have to go as fast as I can. I wake up at 8 (a.m.) and start sewing from then and usually me and my mom been going to sleep at 12, 1 o'clock. We just finished an order for 15 masks -- I just whipped that out in one night."
Jahnea said she would keep making the masks as long as she has material available.
"I just want to help because a lot of people want -- I want to try to get them to essential workers," she said. "And then try to give to any of my family members who are working at all."
The Miguels did "one last" run on Tuesday to Wal-Mart for what might be the final production session of the masks. During the trip, they found someone they needed to help.
"We did one last run for material because I said, 'OK, we have got to stay safe ourselves and stay home,' " Blossom Miguel said. "There's one worker in there, she's my favorite worker, her name is Mele. I said, 'Where's your mask?' She said, 'I don't have one,' so I said, 'OK, we'll bring you one back.' That's how we've been kind of handling it."
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.