As area businesses go into lockdown due to coronavirus concerns, designer Romy McCloskey made the decision to use her surplus materials to make medical masks for those in need around the community free of charge.

McCloskey, a resident of The Woodlands, is the owner of Faden Design Studios, which she has temporarily shut down to focus on mask production. The decision came about the morning of March 20. McCloskey said she made this call because she has free time at the moment and because she is currently under lockdown restrictions from seeing her dad, who is in an assisted living facility.

“It’s made me more thoughtful about how to protect our most sensitive and most compromised with this virus,” she said. “It’s devastating to think doctors and nurses are either going without masks or they are using them until they disintegrate. To me, it’s shameful that people that need things like this do not have them readily available.”

McCloskey added the masks she is in the process of making will not be the same quality as medical-grade respirator masks, but they will offer some level of protection by following guidelines laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in case of a crisis. McCloskey said she will primarily be using cotton and linen, and she plans to continue making them until she runs out of materials. Each mask takes around 10 minutes to make.

The places McCloskey said she wants to get masks to the most are assisted living facilities, such as the one where her dad is residing; she also noted her intent to get masks to cancer patients and those who are immunocompromised.