 Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of Yes, We're Here. I'm John Flaherty and I'm joined by three very special guests with us today. Danny and Caroline Lebray and their daughter Violet, it looks like she's, she's taken a nice little nap this afternoon. So first of all guys, I know you're joining us from Maine. How is everything up there and how are you guys doing and are you helping? Currently, this morning we just got over one of the worst blizzards we've ever seen. I got about eight inches of snow in less than two hours. And when we woke up this morning, there was over 200,000 people without power. So we've made our way over to our friend's house, not too far from us where they do have power. Looking to get back to normal here pretty quickly and back home and back to making masks. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that and in these crazy times to deal with the blizzard. I can't imagine what you guys are going through, but we heard about your story by following UMP's care, Twitter feed, and there's some tweets out there and some great pictures. So why don't you explain what you guys are doing up there in Maine? So it was about two and a half weeks ago while I was at work, I was following the ABC News stories and Governor Cuomo's speeches that he was having each day and one of those days he was talking about masks and that really just kind of resonated with me saying that there was such a great need for masks and it stuck to my mind. When I got home that night, my wife told me that she had seen on social media that Joanne's fabrics, they were doing curbside pickup for fabric kits to make masks and then it just like the light bulb went off of where we're going to start making masks. So I called up my mother, she met us at over at the store, helped me pick up a sewing machine, took it back home and then she taught me how to sew. I had never sewn in my life. So after about an hour of breaking needles and going through everything that could go wrong with a sewing machine, she had me up and running and from about 45 minutes of mask down to about three minutes now per mask. So that's how it all started. Now that is pretty impressive for a guy who's never sewn before because I know I would not be able to pull that one off but we've seen some pictures of you actually making the mask in your full umpire equipment and mask, which is incredible. Yeah, so that that was just kind of a last minute late night delirious for making masks all day. Grab my wife and said, hey, why don't take this video be kind of funny. Get our friends locally just to maybe put a smile on their face of you know here's Dan that normally is out playing baseball now and instead he's you know the 12 year old boy inside of me of waiting to go play baseball sleeping the night before in your uniform anxious to get out there and call a game and I'm like I'll just put on my mask and then we'll be able to say the man behind the mask, you know, no games he'll make masks. So that's that's really what that how that went down and then had sent the message out to a few friends then by the next morning I'm care charities had reached out and asked if they could post it. Our initial thought was absolutely if we can if we can inspire one person to see, hey, I can do this I can so I can either cut fabric. That's that was the driving factor behind it and then fast forward two weeks. The outpouring of support, people reaching out asking where to buy some machine how to sell our church is heavily involved. So right now we've got several several people with several machines making masks and then we go around pick them up and bring them to the local hospital. Would you have any idea how many masks you have produced so far. I'd say between my wife and I, my mother and my aunt out of my house, we've produced probably close to 800 or 900 masks now. But we have another friend from church that she has a bag store that she's got hundreds and hundreds of yards of fabric that she's been donating to the cause and cutting for us. So she's been cutting the fabric, bringing it over to our house, dropping it off, and then we've been supporting kits getting kits out to others. We've actually been bringing fabric to Joanne's fabric because she's been cutting so much. So she's cut to date probably close to 3000 pieces of fabric. Wow. In elastics that go with it. So we found out quickly during this project, elastics have been hard to find interfacing has been hard to find. So it's just been people just getting so innovative and creative and people reaching out saying hey have you tried this have you thought of this you know you own this type of clothing where you could or bungee cords can you cut a bungee cord open there's elastics in there. So it's, it's, it's been very, very, very unique to see just how many people come out with ideas and support. People showing up at our house with boxes of, you know, hey, I have five yards of elastic I found in my attic, please take it. So it's been incredible. And since since the media attention, local newspapers here. It's, it's just kind of exploded so seeing the, you know where that video has come to how many masks we've been able to produce and get to the hospital. I mean, thousands of masks have been showing up there now. We started making headbands to for the professionals with the buttons so that because they're all talking about how the elastics are really hurting their ears all day. So we've been making masks with the headbands, so that they can just put it right on the button so it's still protecting them and it's a lot better for their ears. So we've been making quite a, we've made a lot of headbands. We have some friends that work right at the hospital so we've been able to just give them right to them. And that's been a big help to, because not only do they need to wear a mask all day, but then if it's like some of them like there's pictures of like them with like their ears are just like completely raw. So you, you know, just be able to help out in another way. The PR staff, the ICU staff, we've got friends that work in both so getting their feedback of, you know, can you tweak it like this or can can you get us another 20 headbands tomorrow. It's, it feels really good when you're, you know, just exhausting every night, staying up to the early early morning, and then making that drop off to them and know that they're they're going into battle. And hopefully we could just put a smile on their face or make their ears feel better. It's, it's been wonderful. And then also just, just recently got involved with the United States Coast Guard right here in Portland, Maine. And that's a Coast Guard there, and they were talking about some masks. So we've, we've got some fabric, some navy colored fabric that we're making masks and getting them down to the Coast Guard as quickly as we can. Just this morning, 6am I dropped off 70 that we made last night. So they're, they've got 110 masks that they can wear at work each day now. And we also had another 120 masks that we made for their families to give to their kids. Because they brought it to our attention. A lot of these families that are up here in the Coast Guard, they don't, they don't have any family or many friends around here. So they don't know where to, where to turn to get these things. So when he said, hey, you know, can you help us out? We automatically were like, we got you, we're, we're coming with masks. Amazing. The difference that you're making in the hospitals and now with the US Coast Guard. And, and I think about bringing smiles to people's faces with watching the video of you doing this in your umpire gear. And it reminded me when I retired, one of the things I was really surprised about is that I missed the relationship that I had with these home plate umpires every night. So it made me think, what are you missing the most about baseball right now? And about specifically being an umpire? I'd say exactly that the relationship that you build with the catcher. And especially at this level, you get some games where right out of the gate, you see the kid warming up and you just know you're, you're going to wear a lot of, a lot of passballs that game. And then you get, you get some games where you've got a kid that you know, he'd take a bullet for you. So those teams when you, when you, I mean, you get to know them by name, they know you by name. You know, they, they wear one or you just taking that extra time of walking the ball up to the mound, talking to each other through the mask. It's really special like you pointed out. People in the stands, they don't, they don't live that. They don't know what's being said. You know, and sometimes when I know I've screwed something up, I'll tell the catcher, hey, you know, I got blocked out by the side of you there. I screwed it up. And just that working relationship throughout the game is really what I miss. You remind me right there of my favorite umpire was a guy by the name of Jim Joyce, and I worked a lot of games with him behind the plate. And I would ask him about pitches and to your point about his honesty, he would say, John, I think I missed that one. I'm going to have to take a closer look at it. So you bring back a lot of great memories. Explain to everybody what levels of baseball are you umpire when baseball comes back. So our board, we cover Babe Ruth, Kyle Ripken, all the way up through high school, Legion, into some men's leagues, some 65 and over leagues. So we cover the gamut in the central main area. Awesome. Danny, the last thing that I wanted to talk to you about is, you know, a place that is pretty special to me, Boston, my daughter goes to school in northeastern. I came up with the Red Sox another lifetime ago, but I read about you with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and how you reacted and went towards the finish line to help out. What is it about you with making these masks and wanting to help others? It's very special. So yeah, in 2013, I was working at the finish line for Poland Sprint and we had the street lined with tables of water. So when the bombs had gone off, we had that section of the street blocked with two truckloads of water in the street. So what took us hours of setting up that water and tables took a matter of minutes, seconds for us and people that jumped the barricades to strip that street so that the ambulances and the police cars could get through to get to the first bomb. So in a moment like that, what I've shared with friends and family afterwards, I honestly didn't know what I was doing. There was a lot of fear, but I just knew I'm here to help and we're going to cut down barricades. We're going to clear the street so that the first responders can get through. And so after that day, when I talked to my father-in-law, who's also my pastor, he had said, you know, look, when you think about that day, think about the helpers. Think about the people that sprinted from the end of the, they just ran a marathon and they sprinted to Mass General to donate blood. Think about those people that were there to help. So, you know, in a time like this, it's okay for people to be afraid. It's okay for people to be frozen in time and not quite sure what to do. And it's perfectly fine for people to be, you know, going in that direction of this is a war and we're going to all hands on deck. Everyone's got a job to do. And so that's what I've been sharing with people that this is a very challenging time. We're all going to look back on it and take a lot of pride in knowing what we did and what we're able to do for so many people. And now he can make his own clothes. That's the added benefit of this. Well, incredible what you guys have done, what you are doing now. I know I speak for everybody here at Yes. Thank you for what you guys are doing. You're an inspiration to a lot of people. And just please be safe up there and take care of your family. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you guys.