Though she doesn’t consider herself a seamstress, Tina Fletcher, EdD, is sewing colorful masks in hopes of offering comfort and cheer to elderly neighbors who are anxious over the coronavirus.

Sharks, baseballs and llamas are just some of the prints she’s used for her masks. Fletcher, an associate professor of occupational therapy at Texas Woman’s, hopes the masks will remind people about social distancing and also keep them from touching their faces. She also believes people will “look a little less scary and more friendly if they have a mask with a cheerful pattern.”

Fletcher said her husband, Richard Selvaggi, MD, a family doctor in Commerce, has only one mask due to people hoarding them. In order to exchange his mask for a new one, she said, he has to drive to a hospital 30 minutes away. Initially, Fletcher sewed masks for her family, including a daughter who was about to give birth. Seeing worried elderly neighbors approach her husband in the grocery store led her to do more.

“A lot of people are very anxious about (COVID-19),” she said, “So if we can make something cheerful or funny, … I don’t want to downplay how serious this is, but if we’re following the rules and we’re doing something with a positive spin on it, I think it’s a good idea.

“That’s such an occupational therapist way of looking at something,” she added with a laugh.

The masks she sews aren’t the N95 respirators needed by healthcare professionals, so Fletcher refers to them as “social masks.” She plans to place them on the doorknobs of her elderly neighbors’ homes in hopes they’ll feel more confident and comfortable about going for a walk or running errands. It’s an interesting parallel to her research, she said, which involves encouraging children with autism to participate in the world around them.

Using her sewing machine, which she purchased with Green Stamps, has brought back a lot of memories for Fletcher.

“As soon as I started sewing,” she said, “I felt my mother’s presence. She sewed all our clothes. It’s a very comfortable ‘growing up’ sound for me.”

The masks have brought back other, less pleasant memories — memories of life in a hospital’s transplant unit while undergoing a bone marrow transplant.

Shortly after giving birth almost 30 years ago, Fletcher was diagnosed with lymphoma that had taken root in her chest and had grown to an alarming size. Her oncologist placed her five-year survival odds at about 15 percent.

Fletcher was placed in isolation for months while going through the bone marrow transplant. One day, a nurse walked in wearing a mask on which she had drawn a smile.

“I hadn’t seen a mouth in two months,” Fletcher said. “It made all the difference. (That mask) made her a person again.”

Fletcher hopes the masks she is sewing will make a difference for those who receive them. She also hopes that, when the country steps out of this current isolation, “we are better people for it. Because that is how I felt about my cancer experience. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, but if I had to do it, … you hope you come out better for it.”

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For a list of organizations that need sewn masks, visit the Deaconess Health System website.

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By Karen Garcia
Marketing & Communication
kgarcia@twu.edu