By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The coronavirus has ravaged TSA workers, infecting 378 of them and killing two.
Now some healthy TSA workers, while at home, are sewing masks for family, friends and first responders.
Supervisory TSA officer Susan Schultz, who works at General Mitchell International Airport (MKE) in Milwaukee, sometimes works until midnight, sewing hundreds of masks because her community needs them. She has developed a method to sew masks in about seven minutes.
More than most workers, TSA employees know the risks of the coronavirus.
Justine Waldron, a TSA officer who works at Barnstable Municipal Airport (HYA) on Cape Cod, has made more than 140 colorful masks, some of which have Native American and navigation themes. Others include comic book characters. She’s giving them to family, friends and TSA employees for when they’re off work.
“I really wanted to do my part,” Waldron says in a TSA news release. “People are scared and the masks will help,”
Waldron refuses to take others’ money to pay for the masks.
“Some people have tried to give me money, but that’s just not the right thing to do,” she said. “We all need to stay healthy and get past” the pandemic.