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Dana Marquez, Auburn equipment staff volunteer sewing skills to make medical masks for coronavirus fight

Josh Vitale
Montgomery Advertiser
Auburn's Dana Marquez works on masks for coronavirus aid on March 28, 2020.

AUBURN — The Auburn equipment room is supposed to be bustling at this time of year. Football players need to get fitted for helmets and pads. Staff need to take inventory and get everything ready for the next season.

And that room was bustling Saturday — just not for any reason related to Tiger athletics.

Dana Marquez, Auburn's associate athletic director for equipment operations, worked a sewing machine across from Brian Maddox, who is the assistant equipment manager for Olympic sports and baseball. JT Thomas, who works with football, softball and gymnastics, cut fabric. Marquez's daughter Jordan, who is in medical school at Auburn, worked the iron. Marquez's wife, Liz, made the ties.

They were putting together medical masks to donate to whichever medical professionals need them as they work tirelessly to treat patients with coronavirus. As of Saturday evening, there were more than 700 cases in the state of Alabama (nearly 60 in Lee County) and at least five deaths.

Marquez's list of places to donate started with East Alabama Medical Center (EAMC) in Opelika and a pediatric center in Auburn. As word got out, he received calls from plenty of other places asking if he would be able to help them, too.

"We have the resources, and we now have the time," Marquez told the Montgomery Advertiser on Saturday. "It's been a phenomenal project. I'm glad that we get to do it and help. I just really appreciate the support that everyone has provided us."

The idea came to Marquez on Monday, during a Zoom conference with athletic director Allen Greene and other members of Auburn's staff. Marquez said Greene asked people to "think outside the box" about what, if anything, they might be able to do to help the community, even in some small way.

Other departments at the university have — the College of Veterinary Medicine donated three ventilators and other supplies to EAMC this week.

Marquez raised his hand. He can sew. He admittedly had no idea how to sew a medical mask — he's more accustomed to jerseys, numbers and nameplates, given his line of work — but they don't call him "the sewing guy" in the equipment room for nothing.

He reached out to Debbie Hillestad, who owns the Stitch Therapy sewing shop in Auburn. That's who Marquez always goes to for sewing machines, needles and thread, and she was excited to help.

"She helped me with the fabric, she helped me with a pattern, she showed me how to do it," Marquez said. "One thing led to another, and I brought all that stuff back to the equipment room and said, 'Hey, I can make 100 of these things fairly quick.'"

Marquez outlined the process in a video posted to the Auburn Equipment Twitter account on Thursday. It starts by taking a long piece of fabric, folding it on top of itself and sewing the ends together. That's the part that covers the nose and mouth. Then, pleats are ironed in. Once that's done, ties are sewn across the top and bottom so can they be worn around the ears.

"Assembling it is the hardest part. Cutting the fabric, cutting the material, ironing it, putting the pleats in," Marquez said. "The easiest part of this whole  project is sewing it. Once we have all that done, it really does take only about 60 seconds to put the whole thing together. But it does take a little group of people."

The masks aren't the N95 ones doctors and nurses all over the country so desperately need right now. Those contain filters that keep out contaminants like respiratory droplets carrying COVID-19. Those can't be sewn together in an athletics equipment room.

But Marquez did his homework. He called EAMC and asked what they needed and how to do it. They told him that these masks would be worn over the top of N95 masks to help lengthen the amount of time they can be effective. The masks will also be used for healthy people that are in the hospital, so that the N95s can be saved for the doctors and nurses working directly on the frontlines.

And with all the help Marquez has gotten, he expects that they'll be able to make much more than the original 100 he planned for. His brother called from Colorado to inquire about maybe getting some masks. Marquez's company outside of Auburn,, recently signed on to educate all high schools in the state of Arizona, so he got a request from there, too. He's had friends from Boston reach out.

Marquez also said members of Auburn's athletic training staff have offered to help. Not all of them know how to sew, he said, but some of their mothers do.

They're making the masks in the safest way they can, too — Auburn's equipment room is a large space, Marquez said, so everyone is working six feet apart to comply with social distancing guidelines. They're all healthy and know where each other has been. And before the boxes of masks go out for delivery, they're placed in an ozone chamber, which cleans indoor air pollution.

"I have friends in Auburn who are just dropping fabric off," Marquez said. "The more fabric I have, the more I'll go and just keep on going."

A look at the masks Dana Marquez and his team has made.

Marquez is still doing his day job, too. Auburn's equipment staff has to have everything prepared and ready for when practices and games begin again, even though no one knows when that will be just yet. They're staying in contact with manufacturers like Under Armour — most of whom have shut down factories for the time being — to make sure they'll be able to get all the equipment they need in July, when the countdown to the start of the fall sports season usually begins.

But Marquez and his staff do have some extra time on their hands during a time when Auburn's students are off campus and sports are on hold. They're putting it to the best use they can.

"It's not like we're doing anything, right?" Marquez said. "This has been an eye-opening experience, to say the least. So I just really appreciate everyone's hustle."

