Over the last few weeks, many groups have begun making masks for others to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.
This story has a slightly different spin. You could call it a whole new ballgame.
There’s a new group of masks makers in Montgomery County and they’re not making masks with sewing machines or traditional fabric. Instead, three members of Dig In Baseball‘s traveling team in Gaithersburg have become mask makers using only three things: baseball hats, scissors, and rubber bands.
So far, Stephen Kraft and his two sons have donated 50 recycled baseball caps turned masks to the Gaithersburg Police Department. It took only two days to put the masks together.
Kraft, a Dig In coach from Silver Spring, came up with the idea after looking at the size of the baseball cap and realizing it could effectively cover someone’s mouth and nose. Since the Krafts have been members of Dig In since 2012, they’ve acquired an excess of baseball caps that they’ve stared cutting up and recycling into masks.
Kraft has been working with his sons Sébastien (a former Dig In player), 19, and Emmanuel (a current player), 16. Now that they’ve donated one installment to police officers, they are working on a second batch of masks to donate to other first responders.
Steve Ballance, the head coach and cofounder of Dig In Baseball, approves of recycling old Dig In caps.
“I think that this is a great initiative,” Ballance said in a statement. “I give Steve ‘Pops’ Kraft so much credit for this idea. I’m glad that he even thought about us and called me about it.”
