East Brunswick Girl, Manalapan Teen Make Hundreds Of Face Masks

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — These Central Jersey kids are spending their coronavirus quarantine trying to help in any way they can: By making masks.

Shreya Dutt, a 13-year-old in East Brunswick, is on track to sew 120 masks. And in Manalapan, high school junior Isaac Buckman recently made 200 masks in 24 hours using his family's 3D printer in the basement.

Dutt, who is in the seventh grade at Hammarskjold Middle School, said it was partly out of boredom and partly from just wanting to help that the idea came to start making masks.

She said her aunt in New York was already sewing masks during the coronavirus pandemic, and her aunt directed her to the CDC website, where there was a design for how to make a simple face mask.

During the quarantine, Shreya's mother taught her how to use their sewing machine and Shreya has been cutting up old bed sheets so she doesn't have to go to the store for supplies. So far, she's made 60 masks and is currently working on up to 70 more, she says.

"I don't plan to stop, so I will keep making them even after that," she said.

Buckman, the 17-year-old junior at High Technology High School in Middletown (he lives in Manalapan), told the Asbury Park Press he just wanted to "push himself" and see how many masks he could make in a short period of time.

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"I spent my spring break making these masks and I would love to donate them to people who need them," Shreya told Patch. "There are a lot of people in our community who work hard to keep our lives going and we don't think much about them. Some of them I can think of are postal workers, FedEx, UPS, our garbage collectors and recycle collectors."

Shreya said she would also like to ship her masks to daycare centers or town libraries, that need them.

Her mother, Vishakha Dutt, found a Facebook group called Middlesex Mask Project, which has the goal of donating one million hand-sewn masks, mainly to hospitals and restaurants in Middlesex County. For example, the group has already donated masks to St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, after the Catholic hospital publicly said they were in dire need.

"I feel like even after we come out of the social distancing, we will be nervous and cautious for a pretty long time," said Shreya. "Older people, and people with low immunity will be benefited if we wear a mask in public for a little longer than what is recommended."

Buckman made this video that shows him making the masks in his Manalapan basement:

Dutt also wrote a book, "When Life Gives You Chocolate," about her experiences attending a new school. She donates part of the proceeds to Sammy's Hope animal shelter in Sayreville. She was scheduled to give four book talks over the spring break at various Piscataway schools and the South River library, but all were canceled due to coronavirus.

St. Peter's Hospital In Need Of Surgical Masks (April 1)