NCC’s Makerspace, funded by the NCC Foundation, has provided 200 face shields to the Greater Norwalk Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GNHCC). The Chamber will distribute them to local businesses, an important step in the ongoing pandemic recovery and reopening process for businesses.
Warren A. Peña, an alumnus of NCC, a Board Director for the NCC Foundation, and a Founder and Vice-President of GNHCC, said, “The Chamber is working to educate the community, and prevent the spread of COVID-19 by distributing essential PPE. We wanted to work with local partners and naturally that included NCC.”
Warren personally collected the boxes of face shields at NCC from student and Makerspace intern Lillie Dehaemer. Since the pandemic began, the Makerspace 3-D printers have been used to create more than 1000 face shields. Over the past year, the face shields have been distributed to students, faculty and staff at the college, as well as to various local organizations such as Stamford Hospital, and the Open Doors shelter in Norwalk.
“Given that we have the time, material and equipment here, I wanted to give back to the community and help out,” Lillie said of her work in the Makerspace.
Vladimir Mariano, the Makerspace’s Supervisor who oversaw the production of face shields said, “When the pandemic hit, everything happened so fast. We went into lockdown and there was a real shortage of PPE. However, we found ourselves in a unique position to be able to help out our community by 3D printing face shields. We have been able to join makers around the world in doing our small part to flatten the curve.”
