Campus News

Great Falls College Community Choir knits choral community together with masks

Grace Gibney models one of the masks that she made for the Great Falls College Community Choir.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Great Falls College Community Choir Director Cindy Stevens was looking for a way to stitch the fabric of the choir together in these times of physical distancing.

So, when she saw choir member/avid quilter Jan Dahle was making masks for the health care community, Stevens asked Dahle if she would mind making masks for the choir members.

So, Dahle first finished making masks for the health care workers.

"Right now, they're in pretty good shape," Dahle said of local health care workers.

So, Stevens and Dahle turned to other choir members to see if they could make enough to outfit both the Great Falls College Community Choir and the Symphonic Choir. The two groups total about 150 people.

""It gives them something to do that will keep us connected," Stevens said of the nine women who are sewing the masks.

It also provides the members of the choirs masks to wear when they have to go out into public as CDC guidelines now recommend.

Dahle has been in the college choir since it started in 2014, and this project has given her the opportunity to become even more involved.

"I've made a lot of great friends in the choir and got the opportunity to go on some trips that I never would have been able to do otherwise," she said. "It's been great, not just the fact that we sing, the fellowship of it is important."

Dahle also appreciates that Stevens has been reaching out to make sure everyone in the choir is doing well.

"She has been touching base since all of this virus craziness, asking 'What have you been doing to keep busy?'" Dahle said. "She really knows her stuff and she's fun. She has more energy than anybody I have ever known. She has a way of getting you involved and getting you to want to do the best you can do."

For now, that's in front of the sewing machine instead of on the stage.

Dahle said it takes her about 15 minutes to make a mask, although the first few took a little longer.

"I'll just keep making masks," she said. "It's like a little assembly line, and I whip them together pretty fast. I'm a quilter, there's no shortage of fabric."

And that's music to everyone's ears.

Contact:

Scott Thompson, Great Falls College marketing and communications director, 406-771-4314, scott.thompson@gfcmsu.edu