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The Ontario PPE Collective

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Community Outreach

STEM Minds is thrilled to have joined forces with local makers to form The Ontario PPE Collective!

The Ontario PPE Collective is a collective of makers in the Greater Toronto Area creating and donating PPE to Ontario’s front line health care workers. What started as a joint initiative between Art in Flight Photography and STEM Minds Corp. has now grown into a collective of over 35 community partners and volunteers who are working around the clock to get face shields into the hands of those that need them most during the pandemic.

Given the current government mandate on social distancing, STEM Minds has converted its headquarters into a fully-fledged production center for this initiative. As a BCorp certified business, we are committed to giving back to our local community and support all those who reside and work in it! We currently have 6 3D printers and our Epilog laser cutter running almost endlessly to produce and assemble the masks.

Check out the photos below to see our set-up! Special thanks to Holy Trinity School for adding their printers to our fleet!

Our Reach So Far

Our outreach campaign on Facebook has been tremendously successful and we already have requests for over 800 Face Shields from Health Care Workers at over 20 institutions across the GTA! We’ve also raised over $3000 as a collective to order materials to fill these requests and have begun to recruit volunteers to help produce as many Face Shields as possible. Stay tuned for updates as we continue to produce and deliver!

April 17th, 2020

We delivered our first batch of 10 Face Shields last week and made another delivery of 50 to a COVID unit in Richmond Hill today! All of these workers are on the front lines in the fight against Covid-19 and we were honored to be able to help. Next week we look to an even bigger order as calls have come in from another Covid unit battling an outbreak in the Oshawa area. They currently have the most intubated patients in all of Ontario where 300 workers need our help.

We are also actively searching for volunteers to join our effort. We currently have need for individuals who are able to 3D print parts in PLA or PETG plastic.

April 24th, 2020

Things have been busy at the Ontario PPE Collective, to say the least! The requests keep coming in, as does the gracious support of our community and volunteers. Yesterday, we delivered 300 face shields to the COVID-19 unit at Lakeridge Hospital in Oshawa. Their staff were in desperate need of PPE — currently, Lakeridge has the highest number of intubated patients in the region. We were thrilled to be able to help these heroic individuals, and this delivery was a big milestone in our efforts. Click here to check out the video! 

May 5th, 2020

Since our last update, we’ve been able to make the following deliveries:

  • 13 Shields to a Midwifery Practice in Vaughan
  • 4 Shields to a Paramedic in Pickering
  • 24 Shields to a Medical Clinic in Sharon
  • 30 Shields to Lakeridge Hospital in Oshawa
  • 25 Shields to CHATS in Aurora
  • 24 Shields to Markham Stouffville Hospital
  • 20 Shields to Personal Support Workers in the Peel Region

This puts our current total at over 900 shields donated! We’re so happy to have been able to provide PPE to so many units in such a short time. This is all thanks to our incredible volunteers. We are so grateful to have our dedicated 3D printers, Intake & Sanitization facility volunteers, delivery drivers, and all of our support team to make this all happen!

None of this would be possible without our amazing team of volunteers. We’ve grown our volunteer network to nearly fifty 3D printers, as well as several support volunteers, but we are in need of more support! For more information about how you can help, please click here. 

If you are interested in any of these positions, please click here to sign up. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions about these roles, or how you can support our cause.

Get in Touch

If you know someone who is in need of Face Shields, please refer them to https://ontarioppe.com/

If you’d like to help but can’t 3D print, consider donating. Each Face Shield costs roughly $3 to produce. For $30 you could personally supply 10 workers with the protection they desperately need. Click here to donate.