Stepsisters and ConVal students Angela Molloy and Gabby Cote didn’t have extensive sewing experience, just a desire to help when they stepped forward to be part of the Jaffrey-Ridnge Lions Club community mask-making effort.
“I was kind of being crazy at home,” Angela Molloy said. “I needed an outlet, to have something that’s positive.”
Starting last week, the two became volunteers working in an assembly workshop in Rindge (staffed with no more than ten volunteers at a time, all properly social distanced) making masks that will be given to community members. On Monday, their first efforts were given to the Rindge Fire and Police departments.
“I was a little nervous at first, but the looks on their faces, it was great. They looked happy,” Cote, a sophomore at ConVal said in an interview Wednesday.
Angela Molloy spent nearly every afternoon, once her school work was done, assisting making masks, and Cote has helped on the days when she’s not working at her part-time job at Dunkin’ Donuts.
Angela Molloy, a senior, had been missing her regular activities, such as the church youth group and her internship, and looking for something to do. When her step-mother, Kelly Molloy, heard about the Lions’ mask-making effort, she suggested it for Angela Molloy and Cote.
“I want them to feel proud of themselves, and I want them to look back at this experience, and say, ‘I gave back. I did something with that time,’ rather than just remembering it as miserable. This is what we make out of it. It should be making us stronger, not pulling us apart.”
And Kelly Molloy said, it’s something that the community needs.
“I was going into stores, and in Market Basket, I saw an older lady without a mask. I thought, ‘She shouldn’t be there. She’s not safe.’ I ran into the Walmart, and there was an old man, asking for masks, and the worker told him you can’t get any. That they can’t get any. And his eyes welled with tears,” Kelly Molloy said. “Knowing how scared people are, it was the right thing to do.”
“It’s just a kind of way to give back to the community, in a way that is respectful and has a positive outlook,” Angela Molloy said. “It helps a lot of people. If they’re not able to find masks, we can make them and give them out to people that really need them.”