Utah Covid-19 PPE Maker update 4/30/20

One month, 1000 shields delivered. I don’t even know where to begin to express my gratitude to the Makers, the volunteers and the donors that have made this possible.

As it turns out, 1000 shields is only the beginning. It is my pleasure to be able to announce that our group will be partnering up with the Utah STEM Action Center for what we’re calling the “Maker 10K Initiative”.

What is this initiative? I’m glad you asked! The goal is to deliver 10,000 shields to medical providers in Utah and neighboring states. We will be joining forces with teachers working in CTE (Career and Technical Education) departments in public schools across the state, who will be putting their 3d printers to work generating PPE items to be distributed via UServe (https://userve.utah.gov/ppe/)

For those of you that have received shields from our group (or are waiting to receive shields), this doesn’t change anything for you. We will still continue to distribute shields directly to you as needed. But thanks to the tremendous efforts of our Makers, we are in a position where we are generating more shields than we have requests for, so rather than lose this momentum we will pass on our additional shields to UServe.

For all of you that have been so generous with your donations, know that we would have never reached this point without you. Over the next week we will be phasing out our GoFundMe campaign so we can direct future community donations to the STEM Action Center Foundation, who will be working with us to keep our group supplied with filament and other materials to continue making shields.

Of course no update would be complete without sharing pictures from our friends and family in the medical field that are sporting our shields. Feel free to tag yourselves!

As always, thanks go to all of our Makers and volunteers, our corporate donor Lashbrook. And to all of you for your support. Thanks to all of you I’m proud to say that we’ve made a difference, and we will continue to do so.