Five Keys employees worked nimbly — and outside of their expertise — to answer the global call for personal protective equipment
Did Karla Munoz expect to spend spring in the shield-making business? Not a chance. An administrative assistant at Five Keys’ Los Angeles office, she stepped up to the task when Five Keys put out the call to all staff in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic about a critical need for masks for all staff and guests at the San Francisco Navigation Centers. Working with her stepdaughter into the wee hours of the mornings, the duo produced 800 masks, and over the following weekend, they whipped up another 1,000.
Like a lot of Five Keys staff sheltering-in-place, she found herself wanting to do something to help. Plus, she was inspired because this is "hitting close to home." Her husband's brother in Oregon and his wife and two little girls all had COVID-19.
"We're lucky because we can stay at home, but I really wanted to find a way to help during this,” says Munoz. “My husband went to the store to get six-packs of the towels and we've just focused on making as many as we can."
Five Keys community members are opening their hearts with little hesitation
“The response and love for our communities is unbelievable and truly inspiring,” says Steve Good, Executive Director.
In pockets across the state of California, more than 550 quarantined Five Keys employees are busily cutting rectangles of cotton fabric and sewing them into face masks.
Volunteers like Munoz, and “Ms. Nan,” a math teacher at San Francisco County Jail #5, in San Bruno, are working nimbly — and outside of their expertise — to answer the global call for personal protective equipment (PPE). The ranks of these entrepreneurial seamstresses include the sheltered at home staffers from teachers at Five Keys Charter who work in partnership with the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University to career technical and vocational trainers who work with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the jail teachers.
A teacher at Five Keys for four years, Ms. Nan jumped into action when the call for masks came to Five Keys staff. Immediately, she sent her husband Chris, a contractor also sheltering at home, to the hardware store for the heavy towels to create the staple version of the masks together. The duo hunkered down at their kitchen table and in less than 24 hours had produced 270 masks, which they delivered to the Bayshore Navigation Center by 3 p.m. the next day.
“It felt so good during this weird time to be able to do something positive to help,” she says. “I was feeling stunned and worried about our colleagues and guests at the navigation centers and wanted to do something positive.”
By mid-April, Five Key staffers had created more than 6,000 masks and counting. The majority of the masks were delivered for the 260 guests and 80 staff members at the Bayshore Navigation Center and Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center in San Francisco. Another 1,500 were delivered to the LA Dream Center.
“The show must go on, but we were urgently in need of face masks to keep our staff and guests healthy,” says Tony Chase, director of the Bayshore Navigation Center. “We’re racing around trying to do all we can do, but the masks are coming in and helping us with the safety issues. It is in times like this that we see the amazing dedication of our staff that is keeping these centers open and the others that are working incredibly quickly to get these masks to us.”
Meantime, at the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center, the 126 guests there also pitched in to make hand sanitizer from a homemade recipe the staff scouted on YouTube, says Patricia Richard, Director of Navigation Centers.
“We are committed that these centers will not shut down during these desperate times, and we are grateful for the overwhelming dedication of our staff who are at home learning how to sew and making these masks,” Richard says.