PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- A few weeks ago, Darlene Burton says she woke up with an idea one morning.
"COVID was just surging out of control, and I just wanted to help in some way in my community," Burton said.
The grandmother and mother of six ordered a box of 150 masks online. When they arrived, she began hanging the masks in a tree outside of her Harrowgate home in Kensington for people to take for free.
"I've seen a lot of people walk around without masks on in my community, and just doing the tree made them interested in wearing a mask," she said.
Burton says she was looking for a way to encourage people to wear a mask, without them feeling encroached upon. Her plan is working. She's given out hundreds of masks so far, with the project she started out of her own pocket.
"I put out usually 30 a day everyday. I've had cloth masks. I've had reusable masks put out," she said.
She says the fight against COVID-19 has become personal for her. Both of her children, one of them a health care worker, have tested positive for COVID-19. They are both OK, but she says those diagnoses motivated her, and she saw a need for her efforts.
"If I could, I would protect the whole world from it," she said.
Burton says she didn't expect all of the attention she's gained from her good deed, but she's glad that it's spreading the message about the importance of wearing a mask to stop the spread of COVID-19.
"Wearing a mask can save lives," she said.
She says local organizations have begun donating to the project to help her keep it going. She says she has no intentions of stopping, until the pandemic is over.
"It doesn't matter what you don't have, because what you do have may be enough to help someone," she said. "I'm not a rich person. I'm just an average person. It didn't take me that much to start the tree."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mentioned Burton as a mother of two. She is a mother of six.
