Our GoFundMe was featured in the Mercury News last week! Check it out at https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/25/blockchain-firm-ripple-donates-5-million-to-bay-area-food-banks/
I’d like to take a moment to recognize some of the people behind the scenes who have been a critical part of this project’s success so far.
Maria Gregorio, Lindsay Mancebo, Vanessa Alcantar, and Kylie Borges are Stanford colleagues who are co-leading this project with me. They’ve provided material and financial support, assistance with delivering face shields, delivering essential and hard-to-find equipment to my front door, and have done a fantastic job spreading the word about our project. This project simply would not be where it is without them. Thank you, Maria, Lindsay, Vanessa, and Kylie!
Jim Stoch was the first person I called when I set up the GoFundMe. Jim has an incredible wealth of knowledge when it comes to running successful businesses and non-profits. I was very excited when he agreed to help spread the word. In fact, the feature in the Mercury News was all thanks to him. Jim is currently the President of the MetroEd Foundation, whose mission is to prepare students for high-wage, high-skill occupations in career pathways demanded by the global 21st-century economy. I attended MetroEd’s Fire Science / EMT Program back in 2008, and it gave me skills, experience, and a professional network that I still use to this day. MetroEd, like nearly all educational institutions, is struggling to meet its financial goals in the wake of COVID-19. If their mission is something you’d like to invest in, please consider donating at https://www.metroed.net/donate.
Last but not least, I am so grateful to each and every one of you. For those of you who have donated and shared your name on our project page, I’ll soon be adding a line to the labels we place on our face shield kits that proudly display a “This shield made possible by:” tag followed by an individual donor’s first name and last initial. I hope by doing this, we can show the recipients of our face shields the real people in their community who are invested in their health and well-being.
Summary of Deliveries & Production Update
Over the last ten days, we’ve delivered 160 face shields and 195 NIH-approved ‘ear savers’ – a thin plastic strip you can use to keep ears from getting rubbed raw by the bands on a surgical mask. Over 20 pounds of new PETG plastic filament arrived, and printing continues uninterrupted every day.
Here are a few of the facilities served:
- Kaiser Skyport: Sunnyvale, CA
- Valley Medical Center: San Jose, CA
- Gordon Manor: Redwood City, CA
- The Johns Hopkins Hospital: Baltimore, MD
I rotated between face shields and tension relief bands for surgical masks this past week to fulfill an order from a local physician. It was a good challenge to produce so many in such a short period of time, and the added pressure helped push me to optimize my print settings, allowing me to shave nearly 40% off of the previous print time.
Total face shields produced: 60
Total tension relief bands produced: 198
Here are some photos from the week:
