College helping with COVID-19 supplies for local assisted living facilities

Ripon College is doing its part to help support local assisted living facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Small facilities such as these do not have stockpiles of personal protective equipment and are not supported by the state’s emergency supply distribution network. Larger facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes have more access to available supplies.

The College departments of chemistry and biology, which stock protective latex gloves for use in laboratory settings, have donated 4,160 gloves to the Ripon Community COVID-19 Task Force. The team will work with United Way to distribute the gloves to local assisted living facilities as needed.

Enough boxes of gloves in various sizes have been retained at the College to start the fall 2020 semester.

The 3D printers in the Department of Physics are being used to make protective face shields to donate. Thirty-six face shields were delivered last Friday, and more will be completed until available materials are exhausted. The face shields are being made by Brett Barwick and Christina Othon, associate professors of physics.

“The face shields are the most effective way to use the material we had available,” Othon says. “We wanted to get something into hands locally quickly.”

In the photo: Mary Ann Douglas, Ripon College environmental health and safety officer, presents latex gloves to Robin Wolzenburg and Mary Lyke of the Ripon COVID-19 Community Response Team. Brett Barwick, associate professor of physics, models one of the face shields being created using one of Ripon College’s 3D printers.

Posted April 8, 2020 in COVID-19.

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