No skills, no machine, no problem: GoTriangle manager embraces mask-making mission

To help combat the spread of COVID-19, GoTriangle’s Procurement Manager David Moore developed a plan, but it required a skill Moore didn’t have: sewing.

“I wanted to be able to give back somehow, and I saw a lot of people were making these masks, and I said, ‘I can probably make a mask, too.’ But I had never touched a sewing machine in my entire life,” he said.

To learn to use his machine, he turned to YouTube, and within two weeks he had made more than 100 face coverings and given them away with just one request: The recipients needed to send him selfies wearing the masks.

As his sewing skills improved, he says he gained confidence, which led him to keep churning out more and better gifts.

“Practice makes perfect,” Moore said. “I got really good at it, so I said let me see who I can make the masks for.”

He thought about his wife, a U.S. postal service employee, and her co-workers, all essential staff members, and began sewing masks for them.

 “They loved them,” Moore said. “All these selfies started coming in with all of these people with the masks on. It was just incredible how many people I touched with these masks.”

Moore’s success inspired him to offer his new skills to his coworkers in GoTriangle’s Finance Department, and he announced in a staff meeting that he would sew them all face coverings.

“I thought it was a genuine act of kindness and generosity toward coworkers,” said Jennifer Hayden, GoTriangle’s assistant director of finance. “He totally set the example in promoting our safety and health. The masks are also very creative and beautiful.”

Moore has since gotten a request from GoTriangle’s Regional Information Services Department and he particularly wants to sew face coverings for bus operators.

Moore is using material he got from Wal-Mart and he recently received a 200-yard spool of elastic band. He says he has enough supplies to make 700 masks and he plans to keep making them as long as requests keep coming in.

“It takes about 15 minutes to make a mask, so I’m sewing on the weekends,” Moore said. “I am the kind of person who will continue going until I can’t go anymore, so on the weekends, in the evenings, you know, I’m making them.”

Moore packages his face coverings in zippered plastic bags and affixes a label with the message “Made with love. Stay safe.”