Way to Go! Bethpage student makes headbands for essential workers
Katie Corcoran, a fourth-grader at Kramer Lane Elementary School in the Bethpage School District, has been sewing buttons onto headbands for health care workers to alleviate the pressure of wearing masks. Credit: Bethpage School District
A Bethpage student has been helping to alleviate the pressure for essential workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Katie Corcoran, a fourth-grader at Kramer Lane Elementary School, is sewing buttons onto headbands for health care workers to reduce the discomfort of wearing masks. The headbands are worn underneath the masks and the buttons act as hooks to hold the masks' loops, she said.
As of earlier this month, Katie had created and donated more than 400 headbands to workers in more than a dozen hospital across Long Island.
"Making the headbands makes me feel happy because it's helping people feel more comfortable," Katie, 10, said. "They’re working so hard trying to make all the sick people better and they shouldn't be in pain."
Katie started creating the headbands after a neighbor who works with COVID-19 patients posted a photo on social media of her ears bleeding from wearing her mask for a 12-hour shift. As word spread of Katie's efforts, her family began getting calls from other interested essential workers.
The completed headbands are typically placed in a basket on the Corcoran family's doorstep to be picked up by those who need them; they, in turn, are free to leave donations to help Katie purchase materials, she said.
Katie, a Girl Scout, plays oboe in school and participates in basketball, dance, lacrosse and tumbling outside of school.
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
