A local partnership has the goal of making more than 2,000 face shields to help protect those on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle.
Chuck Ferguson, founder of Wide-Awake Geek in Marysville, aims to make 2,500 masks with help from a variety of businesses, organizations and volunteers through a project called YubaSutter Shields. “I’ve got equipment here, I called volunteers and we got started,” Ferguson said. “We wanted it to be a community project and partnered with the Rideout Foundation for the financial oversight and donations.”
He said they’ve created 600 so far – 500 medical-grade face shields that are 14-inches across for medical workers and first responders and 100 face shields that are 12-inches across for law enforcement and food service workers. “We are so pleased with this community partnership in protecting our front line healthcare, EMS and law enforcement and other essential workers in this crisis,” said Je Swanson, executive director of the Rideout Foundation, in an email.
Ferguson said people can make donations directly to the website and a donation of $12 will cover the creation of one complete face shield. “I got the idea from Operation Shields Up out of Rocklin who started doing it some time ago,”
he said. “That was the spark.” Baked Industries of Yuba City helped by making a few hundred of the elements needed to build the first round of shields and will help with the remainder as well.