Some 30 wardrobe staff from the Shaw Festival are using their expertise to produce masks and gowns for health care workers.

With the festival suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shaw workers are volunteering to help out front-line workers.

Shaw CEO Tim Jennings lauded the staff for stepping up when the call went out for homemade personal protective equipment

“We’ve ordered several thousand more yards of fabric to donate to the public health units and have already done 650 gowns for public health and Hospice Niagara,” Jennings said in an interview.

“And we also have masks going out as far as Hamilton and Burlington and also the Niagara Region.”

The costume workers are also producing a type of headband to help health care staff whose masks are chafing their skin.

“It’s one charity trying to support another,” Jennings said.