 Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here not with Corleen Bean. This is your name from Ontario and we're doing this obviously remotely given the current situation across the globe. So Corleen, why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself and tell us about where you're from and and what you're currently involved in. Sure. Yeah, so my name is Corleen Bean and I am I live in New Hamburg, Ontario. So that is close to Kitchener Waterloo, if you're familiar with Southern Ontario in any way. I'm married to Richard Bean who is a pastor of a new church. We've been going a year and we're located in the city of Kitchener. And I have four children. So ages three to ten. That's our family. And right now we're we're hunkered down in our basement actually because there's renovations taking place in my kitchen and upstairs. And so I think ever after we're going to connect COVID-19 with basement living and not because of COVID-19, but they're they're going to be simultaneous. Bad, bad, bad timing there on the renovations. Well, can you tell us a little of the situation up there. We had heard through one of our advisors actually on our board about some things you're involved in and ways your church is responding to the current situation. How did you find out about the need and what is it that you all are doing. Okay, well, it's a bit of a story and you know it started with with simply my own Desire, I guess, to do something. So yeah, I am a stay at home mom and I'm just at home with my kids and obviously now I'm homeschooling because the kids are home. However, my husband is an optometrist in addition to being a pastor and so his office was one of the first to shut down. He's now taking He's on call several days a week. I'm just taking emergency basis, but he's at home too. And so he offered to take the homeschooling responsibilities. And so I found that I had time and I started asking the question. What can I do. Recently in Sunday school I was in my study prior I was learning about some of the the the plagues and things that have happened in history and how Christian stepped in and they were the ones that That moved in and did things when others would not And and I don't feel like I'm in any way in that position, but that's kind of where my thoughts were we're beginning from this was three weeks ago. Right. It's feels like a lifetime ago, but it's only been three weeks ago and So asking myself the question. What is it that I could do now I'm very much Believe the the stay at home orders and and and we're we're hungered down. I think that that is our way to love our neighbors right now. But maybe there was something I could do from here at home. And so I started talking to some of my nurse friends and some of our Some of the ladies at church who are working on the front lines and we have one young woman who's working in ER And saying, you know, I've I've been seeing people making mass online. Is this is this okay like like does this actually help. Do you need this. And I kind of got mixed answers and and the next thing I did was I reached out to a local doctor a family doctor in our town. And I asked her that question. I said, you know, I have a sewing machine I can so many of our people can so I've heard about mass. Do they help. Can we make mass for you. And I got an email back from her and she said, no, we don't want mass right now. But yes, you can help. We want gowns. And so she put me in touch with a just a newly formed group in the KW area that had been started by her and another doctor or two. I'm not entirely sure of all the details. But there was a group of doctors that got together just a few days prior to my question saying we've got to do something. Our PPE is running out. How can we, how can we Handle this. What can we do and they call themselves the PPE task force this group of informal doctors for just our region and they've put together they have a website they're collecting equipment, whatever they can get And they reached out three days prior to my question to some of their friends who they knew could so and said, hey, we need stuff so can you find people to sell for us. And so I stepped into this Just a few days after it formed my doctor. Directed me to this group and said, I'm going to put you in touch with these people. You can work with them. And so that's how it started with a simple question to my doctor and a week later. That was Friday, a week ago. So we can a day later. I'm it's grown much bigger than I ever thought. So, yeah, so we started with making gowns. I don't know how many details you want to know here, but Yeah, no, this is really interesting. So is this the kind of thing where they basically They're working with a coalition of doctors and different health care providers. And those people submit requests and then you all are basically the people to fulfill that. Is that right way of saying it. That's essentially it. That's right. So I'm not communicating with the doctors directly myself. But the contact that I it's it's in a sense a chain right so the Doctors, the midst their request to to the volunteer org that was just formed. And I get my request from them. And so I'm just a piece of the puzzle. And I pass on what I learned to to the women in our church and a few other churches that have joined to help us. So how many do you have any idea how many people are are sewing to fulfill these orders just in your own church and surrounding area. It that is a moving target. So originally, so so our first request. So after I said that they came back and said, Yes, we've got so so there's so many little pieces to this story little little, you know, I look at it and say God has been directing things. But But so so the group was gifted not gifted. They they did have to pay for it. So they were looking for donations as well. A huge amount of fabric to make these gowns out of because who has, you know, the right kind of fabric lying in their closet for 600 gallons, which is what they needed done at that original request. And so they had people cut out that material and we picked up the fabric. So my ladies did about 50 gowns in that first three days. I think we got those done. And so you asked how many are sewing the original email. There was seven ladies that sewed those. We did 50 gowns those seven or eight ladies did those gowns. Now from there, it has grown. And Now there are so so every day I get an email or two from from somebody else who's found out and said, I hear you're doing this. How can I help. And so there's other churches starting to get involved. But within our own church, I've tried to organize it. My husband has helped me immensely. We've set up a live Google Doc for our seamstresses and then there's people who want to help and other what they don't sew maybe. And so I have a few ladies who drive for me. And so they're doing deliveries when we get a stash of them done. One of my drivers will drive them out to the drop off location, get them into the hands of the doctors as soon as we can. That is really neat. So this is supply and yields just for the hospitals right there in your area. I'm guessing facilities. That's right. And I'll clarify because it's not for the hospitals. Okay. Okay. Currently, we still have in our region, as of the last I knew, enough PPE of the proper PPE for the hospitals. Okay. And so this this doctor task force, what their strategy is is to get to keep the proper PPE with the hospitals that are dealing with COVID-19 patients. And these other supplies that we are providing are then going out to family doctors, midwives, homeless shelter workers. Any of these other health organizations that could, I mean there's the risk they'll run into COVID, but they're not working directly with it as far as they know. So it's providing protection to them so that all the proper PPE can go to the hospitals and the doctors and nurses there. Are y'all just doing gowns or are you involved in sewing any masks at this point? So we started with gowns. So it's it's it was a roller coaster ride at the beginning because the doctors are saying, yes, we want gowns. And then they came back and said, no, we don't want gowns because there's industries that are going to make them for us. And then half a day later, they came back and said, yes, we do need gowns. Those industries can't get the approvals they needed. We don't know how long it will be until they get them. We need these gowns. So we did that. And then I think it was about two days later, they came back and said, okay, can you do surgical caps? And so we've done those. And that's been one of the things we've actually focused on maybe more so in the last half week is the caps. They came back and said, can you can you get us 100 caps ASAP? And so I sent my women to work and sent up patterns. I drafted a pattern because we needed to they had a certain one they wanted and it wasn't free online. And people were so willing to pay for it. So I started drafting a pattern and I was sending that out. And so this is actually one that my son made. He's even my eight year old son has even gotten making surgical caps. So this is a surgical cap that kind of what they look like. And so you asked about masks and our doctors have been really hesitating on that one because the stats are not good. They really don't give very good protection. But just in the last two days, she came and said, we're going to cave, we're going to ask you to make some masks. Wow. So right now, we they have a request out for 700 masks. Now we're not filling all of those. There are other stores in the community that are working as well. So, so we had just done an interview a couple of days ago, I think, I don't know, five days ago or something. And for the record, this is April 4. So these situations change a lot. Come back a few days, you know, it could be a different story. This is more for reference points for people who are wanting to know how to help. And where we were at, I think it was 31st, they did another interview with Matt Landis and it's a group that I'm a part of where we're helping in New York City. And in that case, that's what they wanted. They didn't want the gallons they needed masks. And they're they're saying was, well, if we can get these masks, we know they're not as good. But then it'll spare the really good masks for surgeons, you know, people actually working with patients, and then all your, you know, EMTs and, and, you know, just general hospital staff or even like police officers, firefighters, whatever, can wear these on a day to day basis. And they asked for 2000 just for one hospital. Like immediately, oh my goodness, there's and there's so many more hospitals in New York City asking for the same thing. And similar to that, where the masks here are not being used in the hospital setting, but for those other, other people that need them. Yeah, exactly. Or like long term care facilities. Exactly. Homes are starting to require a lot more strict measures and things. But oh my, that's, that's amazing. That's like, one of the things I want, I hope this interview will do is inspire people to just go out there and ask questions like for yourself. You wanted to help, but you didn't even know where to start. So you, you literally just cold emailed somebody. Am I right on that? That's how this all started. Wow. So if you just said, well, let's, it's not worth it. Let's not even send that email. Yeah, be a different story. Yeah. And that's what I would say too. Like if you, if you, if you have a sewing machine, if you have something you can use and you have time, reach out and ask somebody, ask some questions, what can you use? What would you need? Is there something that I could do to help you? And sometimes that's all it takes is a question. Yeah. If you're in the KW area, I'm going to put a plug in here that, you know, I'm not necessarily looking for more emails myself. I feel like my workload is, is, is high enough at the moment, just organizing who I've got on my team. But check out. They've got a Facebook page. If you just look up KW COVID medical supplies, you can find what we're doing and join the effort even just from there. Yeah. That was actually, that was something I thought about there. If there's things like that that we can reference so that people that watch this can, can click through and see, and then see how you all are doing it. And then hopefully in their own churches and groups model that. Like for example, how did you figure out what patterns to use? Did you make all that from scratch? Did that hospital staff help you with that or? And in our case, the, the, the, the doctor team that we're working with has, has done all that. So, so everything gets sent out to us with a pattern or with several patterns that these are what we would like. This is kind of the style where this would be our preference. Can you make this? And so I know some of the volunteers in the, in the chain above me have done some of that work with the patterns. Some of it was just a YouTube video sent out. This is the pattern we want. That was the case with the, with the surgical cap. It was a YouTube video and it looked easy enough. The pattern looked easy enough, but you had to buy it, which was, which was fine. And some of our ladies did buy it. But it was a very easy one that, that I just drafted it myself then. But yeah, they handed us those patterns, those instructions, they gave us, you know, a whole, this is the material you need to use. This is how you do it. I mean, we're trying to be as careful as we can, as far as calmliness. If you're in isolation, if you have symptoms, you do not so. The material needs to be washed in hot water before you start and, you know, try to hand wash as much as you can throughout the process, limit the number of people that are touching that fabric and the finished product. And I mean, they're still going to sanitize it once they get it, but trying to take precautions all the way along the way. But yeah, I'm not organizing those steps. I'm taking what I'm told and then just passing it on. And I think that's a really good point for people to keep in mind is everyone can play a role in this. Everyone from your health care workers all the way down to the person sewing it and everything in between. There's a long, hopefully not too long, but there is a chain of supply that needs to be filled and there's slots all along that chain that people need to plug into. Maybe, you know, what would you say to anabaptists all over that they're going to see this different people around the country, Canada, US? What's the first step? Like, what can they do at this point? Probably ask those questions. You know what, we're far enough into the crisis, like I just got an email just before this interview that Cam has put out that they now have patterns and that if you want to sew gowns or masks, get in touch with them, they can facilitate some of that. So some of our, some of the groundwork may not have to be done at this point. As in, if you want to help, if you can sew, there's organizations out there that are mobilizing at this moment and starting to get it happening so that you can just start sewing and don't have to figure out the logistics of, okay, where do I send this? What do I do with it? How do I find a pattern? Start doing some looking and I think you'll be able to partner with someone who's already working and get going on it. Don't reinvent the wheel, maybe. Just come along with somebody who's doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a piece that's been exciting for me is that in this process, I've been able to work with other faith communities in the community. Like this is not just our church doing this. This is something that humanity are all in together and it's something that we can partner together with other groups as well. And at the end of the day, I think all this comes back to, this is us wanting to serve and love our neighbors in whatever way we can. And each community is going to be different. Like in my community and Tennessee, you know, it hasn't really hit my area too hard yet. So the needs are going to be a lot different here than they are, say in New York City, which is like frontline. They need medical supplies immediately. It's a very different field than what say my church may do in response. And maybe out of all this, people could start thinking creatively, you know, and I wonder and maybe you can comment on this, but a crisis of this scale, which is basically encompassed pretty much every country in the world and infected over a million people that we know of, it brings all of humanity together. And maybe this is a way that is going to allow our Anabaptist people to get outside of our own churches and reach out to the neighbor that may live right beside us in a way that we may not have had the opportunity, you know, months ago. Yes. Have you seen that happening in your communities? It's an open door into people's lives that you didn't have a few months ago. You know, just speaking personally, I've seen it in our own street here, in our own, for us. Now, it's not that we didn't know our neighbors. We're in a small suburb. And so we do have a great little community, but it has facilitated more conversations. You know, we're social distancing, of course, but when we're outside and from our two meter distance from each other, there's conversations happening that didn't happen before. And I hear people asking each other like, are you doing okay? Like, is there anything I can do for you? And it's enabling us to care for each other in ways that maybe we didn't feel the permission to ask some of those questions before. For example, our neighbor is a single man. His parents are elderly, and he's been caring for them for the last year. And, you know, it was an opportunity to say, hey, are you really doing okay? Like, what can we do for you? And my children and I got out and we raked his lawn for him because we knew he was gone long days caring for his parents. And it felt like a simple thing that we could do to help care for him even, you know, in this time. And it's open to those conversations and people care for each other. That's what that is really neat. That's really neat. And maybe we can use this as a reminder, look for those open doors that may not have been there before. Right. And be willing to ask those questions again. Even people we barely know, you know, how can I care for you? Yeah, wow. Wow, this is really interesting and inspiring. And I hope, yeah, people see this and can see that just the practical side of how we can get involved. We're all seeing the stats and we're all, you know, there's a little bit of fear amongst some people. And then there's other people who don't seem to, it doesn't really, hasn't really affected their lives. And I would like to bring both of those groups together, the people who are really terrified and those who are not taking as seriously, bring them together and say, all of the, all the details aside, how can we serve people? How can we actually love those people around us? How can we be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people that are right in front of us, whether that's my children in my family, my medical community, or my neighbors outside? Yeah, let's do it. I want to acknowledge all the people. I'm just a piece in the chain. And so all the, all my sewers and all the other people, they're doing so much. And I want to most of all give honor to God for his, yeah, he's, he's at work. And I want my piece in, in this story to, to bring glory to him. Wow, that's, that's really neat. This has been very enjoyable. And I appreciate you taking the time to share your, your story. And hopefully I'd like to post some links to your Facebook group and things. I'm in this and maybe there will be some people getting in touch that want to do this in their own churches. That would, that would be really neat. So sure. Thanks again so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. You're welcome.