Friday Jewell County received KN95 masks for 10 percent of the population of the county. The donor of the masks was the Patterson Family Foundation.

The Foundation, a charitable family-led foundation in Kansas City, recently purchased a quantity of KN95 respirator masks and donated them for emergency use by more than 100 rural and semi-rural counties in Kansas and northwestern Missouri.

On Friday, a plane landed at the Mankato Municipal Airport to deliver the masks. To welcome the delivery were Jewell County emergency responders, Nancy Marihugh, health director; Lori Slate, hospital emergency preparedness coordinator; Dawn Steinman and Nickia Vance, Jewell County hospital; Don Jacobs, sherifff; Shannon Meier, EMS director; and Keven Peroutek, emergency preparedness director.

Josh Nan, a volunteer from Kansas City offered to fly the masks to local airports. He is the CEO of a company in Kansas City that helped the Patterson Famly Foundation find sources for the masks. ATD Flight Systems of Kansas City donated a pilot and the flight to deliver the masks.

Masks were also delivered to Republic, Smith, Osborne, Mitchell and Cloud counties on Friday.

The foundation extends the legacy of Neal and Jeanne Patterson through collaborations in health care, education and rural communities. The foundation was founded in 2007 by Neal Patterson and his wife, Jeanne. When Neal died in 2017, he made a $1 billion provision to expand the work of the foundation. Today, Neal's adult children and the small staff of the Patterson Family Foundation honor Neal and Jeanne's memory by working on behalf of the rural Midwestern communities they loved. Many of the members also have roots and families in rural communities.