Kentucky elementary school employee gives away free masks

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - A Fayette County school employee is making sure every student has all of their school supplies.

Madeline Potter works as the coordinator of the James Lane Allen Elementary School’s Family Resource Center. She is going above and beyond for back to school.

Campus is coming back to life after an extended break. Students greet their teachers in the backseat of the car in registration drive-thru lines.

This year, parents aren’t allowed to walk them through the doors, but a box of handmade masks is waiting for them at the entrance.

”Anybody, you don’t have to be a part of the school, anybody who needs them, that’s who we want to get them,” Potter said.

While students learn their ABC’s and arithmetic, Lucille Potter refines her home economics skills, teaching herself how to make masks with her sewing machine.

“She started making them and was getting really, really good at it, and we would give them out anywhere, because at first it wasn’t required everywhere,” Madeline Potter said.

Lucille’s daughter-in-law, Madeline Potter, helps students and families meet basic needs and overcome educational obstacles. She said this summer has been especially difficult.

“We had a family that, they don’t have laundry in their apartment so they would have to clean their clothes in the sink, and they didn’t have any way to dry them,” she said.

Potter said students learning virtually still need supplies at home. She encourages people to donate blunt end scissors, glue sticks, pencil sharpeners, markers and other school supplies they can find to their local schools.

On top of paper and pencils, Play-Doh and crayons, Potter is giving this community something to smile about, under the cloth.

“They don’t have to ask and they just come whenever, you don’t need to make an appointment or anything,” she said.

It’s not uncommon for the box of 150 stacked masks to be emptied by the end of the week. It’s the gift that can give life.

If you want to help keep the James Lane Allen mask project going, Potter asks you donate quilting cotton, elastic, shoe laces and fabric to the Family Resource Center.

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