Our Heroes
KC Greaney was selected by COTS as PRG’s “Hero of the Week.”
“We have a volunteer, KC Greaney, who has spearheaded a mask-making campaign for COTS residents and staff. She is also providing masks for other organizations such as Petaluma People Services Center and Meals on Wheels. She has not only made hundreds of masks, she has organized the local sewist community and engaged friends and strangers to help in this effort. The faces of the residents at the Mary Isaak Center all boast beautiful handmade masks, crafted with care and love.\” Jules Pelican, Director of Programs, COTS. Cots mission is to assist people to transition from homelessness to a permanent home.
KC, a recently retired Administrator from Santa Rosa Junior College, used to mass produce costumes for her children’s school drama productions. When KC heard that COTS of Petaluma needed face wear to protect their vulnerable clientele she put her sewing skills to work. When the demand for masks grew she turned to social media and NextDoor to ask for help. At first, accomplished sewing friends stepped up, then strangers. Sewing materials, including much sought after elastic and beautiful bundles of fabric from retired quilters would appear in bins she put out on her porch.
The group of volunteers grew and so KC turned her organizing skills to managing 30 sewists, and additional helpers making the nose pieces cut from aluminum flashing – a suggestion from a local hardware employee, “MacGyver Bob.” A local upholstery company, closed during the shutdown, cut 1/2” bias tape for the project. Now known as the Petaluma Masketeers, this wonderful collective of friends, neighbors, and strangers rallied to the call and have made over 1,000 masks.
Two of the accomplished sewists even made surgical gowns when these were in short supply. The demand for KC’s masks is growing so now the collective is making masks for low income senior housing residents at Pep Housing, Petaluma Service Center and the Village Network of Petaluma volunteers who also want masks when helping seniors at home.
KC is so pleased to be able to give back in appreciation of the public for the support her family needed when she was young. Thanks to food stamps and medical, KC’s mother was able to provide her family with food and healthcare. Thanks to her family receiving help through public funding, KC grew up to become the first in her family to go to college and to earn a Ph.D.
KC is a great supporter of the COTS’ philosophy and the caring support they are providing vulnerable members of our community in need of housing, medical and behavioral healthcare. “COTS staff treat everyone with an inherent dignity, and their integrated services help break the cycle of homelessness.” Thank you, KC, and all the KC Masketeers! https://cots.org/about/
