During the afternoon of Easter Sunday 2020, we began to reflect about the manner in which we could help our neighbor … and do so from our homes, thus complying with the government’s health guidelines. As a result of the pandemic and aware of the shortage of masks, the idea of making cloth masks was born. Our intention was both to donate and to sell these masks. We are a team of 9 committed lay women from the Immaculate Conception Parish, in Bugaba (Panama) … three of our group belong to the “Saint Catherine Laboure” Conference of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SSVP).

The objectives that we established were:

1. To strengthen our solidarity with the people who have to work in the midst of this crisis.
2. Use the income from this initiative for charitable work.

We were also invited to collaborate, donating our time and knowledge, in making clothes for doctors. “Serving in hope,” as the SSVP motto says, we promised to manufacture 90 sets of such clothing for medical staff working at the Rafael Hernandez Hospital in the city of David.

We give thanks to God and the support from the SSVP and the Vincentian Family partners, who contributed the fabric, bought the products and helped us sell them … all this enabled us to achieve the goals that we had set out to accomplish.

“The more prayerful, the more active. The more active, the more prayerful ” (Saint Vincent de Paul).

Mixila Martínez,
Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Panama