Kristina Wong is a comedian and an actress known for her one-woman shows.
But Wong traded the stage for a sewing machine and formed a team of volunteers to sew and make face masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
Wong was preparing for the debut of her new show right before the pandemic hit the country.
“I was set to tour all over the country. The pandemic happened and I was like, ‘Oh, of course, this happened.'”
Even though the tour is postponed and hurt her financially, Wong did not despair.
“I’m not going to be depressed the way I was after 9/11 or during the recession in 2008,” Wong said. “I’m going to do stuff. I’m going to stay busy. And I’m going to fix other people’s problems.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, people desperately searched for face masks. The material to make them was limited. But Wong had scraps of fabric laying around her home as she sews her own stage props. She learned the basics of sewing helping her mother quilt as a kindergartener and picked up sewing machine skills in her sixth-grade home economics class.
“I was like ‘I can do this. I can sew.’ I just sort of refuse to believe that we’re powerless in these situations,” she said.
“I made my first mask on March 20th. I posted on my Facebook page ‘If you are immunocompromised or don’t have access to masks, I’ll make you a mask. Just reimburse me $5 for postage.’”
Hundreds of requests for masks poured in, and Wong soon realized she couldn’t do it alone.
“I was saying ‘yes’ faster than I could sew.”
Due to overwhelming requests, Wong posted a plea for help. Soon, others began volunteering and she launched a Facebook group called the “Auntie Sewing Squad.” It started with just 26 people, and now, it has more than 800 sewers across the US.
The Auntie Sewing Squad has distributed more than 55,000 masks to vulnerable communities, and Wong is proud of the group. But she also admitted she’s frustrated.
“I do refer to our group as a ‘sweatshop’ because I don’t want to romanticize it.
While we are enjoying each other’s company in this very strange time in history, we shouldn’t have to be doing this work. This is absolutely the government’s job. We should not have had to turn our homes upside down into sweatshops and pull the sheets off our beds to make masks.
”
The aunties are focused on serving communities in need affected by the pandemic like immigrants, farmworkers, Black and Brown citizens. They’ve also provided masks to Native Americans like those living in South Dakota’s Bear Soldier District.