Chicago-area residents making masks for healthcare workers

HANOVER PARK, Ill. - One thing is clear this weekend, the pandemic is creating a sense of community, and with the stay at home order in place in Illinois, people are finding creative ways to give back.

In Hanover Park Sunday night, a display on a business is a good reminder that we’re all in this together. An Oswego tattoo parlor heard the call and they’re taking the ink out of their needles, using them instead to make masks and giving them away free to those who need them most.

Mask making is a family affair at a Beecher alterations shop. Ana Tristan’s Go Fund Me page is raising money to support her mask making operation.

"I can't make the N95 masks, but when I saw that CDC was recommending bandanas, I thought I can make something better than bandanas,” said Tristan.

They’re filling over 100 requests right now.

"The word started to spread and I was like, 'I can either run my business or I can do this,' and the more I heard about the need I decided to do this," she said.

On Tristan’s list – health care workers at three hospitals.

Hospital workers are on the front lines of coronavirus. So are firefighters.

"Every morning at shift change we screen our employees prior to them entering the building, checking their temperature,” said Beecher Fire Chief Joe Falaschetti.

As COVID-19 adds stress to an already stressful job, Beecher firefighters were greeted with a random act of kindness when they couldn’t find eggs at the grocery store today.

A local family in there invited them back to their house and donated eggs and contacted a local butcher, Happy Life Farms, and they brought in a giant box of meat, pork shoulder, ribs. 

"I don't want to get emotional, but it just give you that warm and fuzzy feeling,” said Chief Falaschetti.

A mini firefighter, Lima, turned four years old today.  Guests lined up outside his Hanover Park home offering a greeting and a gift from their car.