HALIFAX, MASS. (WHDH) - The Halifax community is staying connected during the outbreak with a show of support for one woman who has been sewing hundreds of masks and giving them away to those who need them.
Chris Tompkins has transformed her living room into a one-woman sewing circle to help lessen the shortage of personal protective gear medical professionals are facing amid the coronavirus crisis.
“When this all happened, I felt like I just, I don’t know, I had to do something,” she said.
Tompkins is active in multiple communities as a Meals on Wheels driver and spends her free time volunteering with senior veterans.
When the coronavirus outbreak hit, she heard the calls for help and jumped into the fray to help those on the front lines.
“My two nieces are nurses in the emergency department and they have beautiful little children at home and, sorry if I’m getting emotional, you know,” she explained “and they worry every day.”
So, she borrowed a sewing machine from a friend and got to work.
So far she has hung over 700 masks on the giving tree in her front yard.
“It’s important that everyone does a little something and this is what I can do,” Tompkins said.
The community has answered her generosity with its own message of kindness and love.
Recently, someone decorated her car with a giant mask to say thank you for all the work she has done to help others.
“I’m the mask lady so she took a big piece of cloth and made this giant mask and put it on the friend of my car,” Tomkins said.
According to her, everyone should do their part to combat the coronavirus whether that be staying at home for helping out in whatever way they can.
“Just any little thing you can do to make somebody’s life a little bit brighter, it just means so much,” Tomkins said.
(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)