MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For weeks now, everyone from hospitals to healthcare clinics, to the homebound have been looking for PPE to stay safe from the coronavirus. But the short supply means it’s hard to come by. That’s why Monongalia County resident and Alderson Broaddus graduate Doug Jones started a project printing free face shields for those in need. He said he knew what was coming with the disease long before it hit the area.

“My company’s spread out throughout the world, and I talked to folks before it actually came to the United States, and definitely before it came to West Virginia. Just seeing the impact of this, at was frightening, it was very frightening,” said Jones.

Doug and his wife Kelly have been working together to find the best and most efficient design possible, going through multiple iterations before settling on the design they are currently using. They said the extra time spent on design makes it easier to crank out more of the shields.

“During all this design, we’ve been slowly decreasing the width of the headband, because not only does it reduce material that we’re using, but it drastically reduces the print time,” said Kelly Jones.

The shields are available for free, and they’ve taken requests for as few as one, and as many as a thousand shields. While Jones doesn’t have a medical background, he said he’s glad to put the talents he does have to good use.

“A lot of my customers I help coordinate their systems being a lot more efficient, Help them by whiteboarding projects and things, so for me I tried to take the skills that I use in my everyday job and just push it towards a project for us to try to help everybody,” said Doug Jones.

For more information, or to request face shields, email wvfightingcovid19@gmail.com

For a PDF copy of the shield’s specifications, click here.