The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

Six weeks ago, Relief Society General President Jean B. Bingham asked members of the Church of Jesus Christ to join Utah’s ProjectProtect effort to produce 5 million medical-grade masks to help health-care workers during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

On June 20, at the end of an added “encore week,” volunteers gathered the last of nearly 6 million masks sewn by more than 57,500 volunteers from around the state of Utah.

In total, those volunteers donated some 800,000 hours picking up, folding, sewing and delivering more than 5.7 million masks.

“This project has required such a sustained effort,” President Bingham said following the project’s completion. “It has been heart-warming and somewhat amazing to see the dedication of the volunteers who have showed up, week after week, to cheerfully pick up the kits and then tearfully — and gratefully — deliver the finished masks. I’ve seen mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, friends and neighbors, old and young, rally around this cause.”

ProjectProtect — which started as a five-week community initiative organized by University of Utah Health, Intermountain Healthcare and Latter-day Saint Charities — has provided the clinical face masks and other types of personal protective equipment for Utah’s front-line health care professionals treating COVID-19 patients.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.