The Gee’s Bend quilters have long been known for sewing fabric into beautiful fine art, but when the pandemic reared its head, Mary Margaret Pettway (on left) and Mary McCarthy took to smaller objets d’art. “We had a copious amount of cloth from one company and thought, ‘Oh, these would make great masks,’ ” says McCarthy. So they partnered with the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, of which Pettway is board chair, to hire six more quilters and gather materials to make 600 masks—enough for their entire community.