Atlanta Beats Covid: Makers creating PPE
#makersgonnamake. . . . Decatur Makers is proud to be a big part of the Georgia response to the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) shortage in partnership with other makerspaces and makers across the state! Under the Atlanta Beats Covid initiative, our group has created and delivered 25,000 face shields, medical gowns, and other equipment to date.
This has grassroots beginnings with an email sent by one of our awesome members, Lee Whitcher, to our Decatur Maker community googlegroup to start up a group to help make quality products at high standards in this time of limited supply until the industries catch up to the demand; “Thanks to the strength of the maker community, we are problem-solving and creating for a purpose,” says Lee. “We are proud to be part of this worldwide effort to help fill the need to save lives.”
And makers jumped on board immediately. This rogue group grew to include hundreds of volunteers from many local makerspaces including the Maker Station, Roswell FireLabs, and Gwinnett Geekspace as well as Southeast Makers Alliance, and many other makers from around Georgia. Partnerships have also developed with other groups focusing on particular areas such as the Sewing Masks for Atlanta Hospitals Facebook group, Atlanta Shield Makers, and Atlanta Face Shields.
ABC was originally founded to address the huge PPE shortage facing our medical workers. From March – June 2020, we provided over 22,650 pieces of PPE to healthcare and frontline professionals through generous donations of time and money from individuals, maker spaces, partners and sponsors. Please consider donating your time or make a financial contribution here.
Since June 2020, we have shifted our focus to providing face shields to teachers at public and not-for-profit schools. If you are a school principal or administrator in need of PPE for your teachers, please reach out to us via our contact form here. If you are an individual or business in need of PPE, please see our PPE resource page here.
Financial donations can be made online at AtlantaBeatsCovid.com to support the purchase of 3D printer filament, plastic, elastic, and other raw materials and equipment. Decatur Makers is the fiscal sponsor, we’re a non-profit, so all donations are tax-deductible!