DENVER -- Christina Martinez and Paul Drake, Rockies fans from Pueblo, Colo., and their families wanted to help provide protective, non-surgical masks for people who really needed them. Thanks to the Rockies, their desire to help in small ways has grown into a project that is helping many entities.

This week, non-surgical masks that the families constructed -- out of Rockies game-used and promotional items -- are being distributed throughout the UCHealth system, to Rockies community partners such as Denver Rescue Mission, Food Bank of the Rockies, local Boys and Girls Clubs and others. Fans who approached via social media describing their need also are receiving them.

The success is a result of people who figured that even when sheltering in place, they can connect to others as part of the fight. And the Rockies, through director of brand management and social media Julian Valentin, alertly turned it into a larger project that helped more people.

Here’s how it started:

• Martinez works from home as a medical coder. But it was her sister, Karen LaRoche, who was working at a blood plasma donation clinic in Everett, Wash., that needed the help. Washington was one of the early hot spots after the COVID-19 outbreak and personal protective equipment was scarce. Since Martinez and her mother, Martha Martinez, are avid quilters with a lot to do while sheltering, they had materials to make one for LaRoche.

Christina Martinez is on Twitter (@OrangeCrushtina). By mentioning that she could make masks, suddenly she began making them for “friends, friends of friends, strangers, people that we know on Twitter, people that we don’t know on Twitter.” Some began making requests for designs from teams such as the Rockies and the NFL's Denver Broncos.

• Drake worked in the medical field as a respiratory therapist and was a director of a department for 12 years. Now, after retiring, he owns and operates Twisted Rabbit Creations with his wife, Angela, and daughter, Erin Crawford. The company sells handcrafted bath products at events throughout Colorado.

“Our son, son-in-law and daughter work at the state hospital, and they came home one day with these throwaway masks,” Drake said. “They said, ‘This is what they’re giving us. Can you make something better than this?'

“My wife is the brains behind the whole thing, the seamstress. She knocks one out in five minutes, they take it to work and next thing you know, we’re getting orders, then working 14 hours a day trying to keep up with all this.”

The Drakes went public, selling packages of three masks and a bar of soap on the company web site, marketed on social media. Given his background, Drake also felt “the need to do something for these folks out there on the front lines.”

• The Rockies have whimsical, highly followed and highly respected social media accounts. Valentin worked through Twitter to contact Christina Martinez and Drake.

Shortly after, Valentin donated a huge haul of used and unused Rockies memorabilia, including T-shirts, caps, jerseys -- really anything in purple, black and gray that the club could spare. The work on the part of the families was also donated. There was no licensing red tape.

But as the week continues, hundreds of people who are helping others will have masks.

“As soon as we connected via direct message on Twitter, they were wanting to help however they could,” Valentin said. “They were already making masks for the people of their community and on their own time.

“Christina and her mom live next door and they were making the masks in the basement for their family and friends. The Drakes, they own a small business and had to adapt, and they wanted to help people.”

The masks are not intended for surgical use. They’re to be used to lessen the chance that the wearer, who may or may not be asymptomatic, transmits the virus to others.

Both families took measures to ensure that the masks are effective. T-shirts, for example, are a bit thin for masks, so the Drakes used some of their own material for backing and left a pouch for a filter. The Martinez family developed a triple-layer technique.

The materials may have been leftovers and holdovers, but there were a few gems, Paul Drake said.

“He even brought a Todd Helton jersey that I couldn’t bring myself to cut -- it’s hanging in my closet,” he said. “They sent me a batting warmup hoodie that was actually David Dahl’s -- you could see it. I told Julian, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t cut this up.'”

Christina Martinez said that this is her family’s way of dealing with persistent and often frightening news of the havoc COVID-19 has created.

“We were just watching too much of the news, getting too worried about the effects it could have on our son [Braden], with all the complications from asthma,” she said. “So I said, ‘All right, Mom, we’ve got to do something.’

“She jumped in like, ‘Oh, I love it.’ So we’ve spent a lot of time together, watched ‘The Golden Girls,’ ‘Laverne and Shirley,’ any kind of TV show or movie we don’t have to keep our eyes on. We can listen and talk and laugh. My other sister, Vanessa Martinez, helps us with cutting mask patterns."