A 13-year-old girl has used her entire allowance to pay for the creation of 100 masks, specifically for Army medics who came to a New Jersey hospital to assist with COVID-19 patients.

 

Her name is Sophia Farid, and her mom, Sima, is a social worker at UMDNJ in Newark.

"I wanted to show my appreciation to them and thank them for coming to University Hospital to fight COVID-19,” says Sophia.

Sophia heard that Gov. Phil Murphy was sending 86 Army medics to the hospital to assist with COVID-19 patients, and she wanted to help as well.

So, she asked her mom if it was OK to spend her allowance, money she was hoping to use during a spring family vacation, on having a seamstress make 100 masks so the Army medics can have a clean one to wear after they discard their used one. Sophia spent her Sunday handing out specially made masks to the medics.

“This is one of them,” says Sophia. “They are really, really comfortable and they can wear it when they are social distancing and they’re not around patients.”

But her giving didn't end there.

 

"Sophia had made these personal ribbons, red white and blue ribbons and wrote them all a personal message, every soldier gets a message directly from Sophia,” says social worker Sima Farid.

Sophia’s kindness is something people who know her are getting accustomed to. Last summer, she purchased a pallet of water and donated it to Paradise Baptist Church during Newark's water crisis.