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Protecting health care workers

Community shows support by making masks, face shields

By Angie Landsverk


In homes and businesses throughout Waupaca, people are sewing medical masks and using 3D printers to make face shields for area health care workers.

The Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is being donated to ThedaCare-Waupaca and area nursing homes.

“Every little bit helps. I think that we all can’t do huge things, but we can all do little things that are huge,” said Becky Liegl.

A fourth-grade teacher at Waupaca Learning Center, she is part of the Waupaca Medical Masks group.

Angie Strasse, a Realtor in Waupaca, proposed the idea on Facebook.

She wanted fabric to make medical masks, and Liegl was among those who responded.

Liegl had 15 years worth of fabric in her family’s home.

The group started on March 21, and now has about 250 members.

They have made and distributed more than 1,000 masks, Liegl said.

That included an order of 1,000 masks for ThedaCare-Waupaca.

Waupaca Medical Masks needed ThedaCare’s approval for the pattern.

The pattern can be found at www.facebook.com/groups/733051880559654/.

Before the ThedaCare order, the group first made hundreds of medical masks for Bethany Home.

Now they are making them for the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King and Park Vista.

Liegl said the pattern the veterans home is accepting is a simpler one.

The link to that pattern is: www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask/Documents-Mask/.

“If we get to the point where the health care workers are covered, our plan is to make them for the community,” she said.

Liegl said the easiest way to connect with Waupaca Medical Masks is on Facebook.

“It’s definitely a grassroots effort,” she said.

The network includes people who reply to questions on the Facebook page.

“We have two people who go to people’s houses two to three times per week to pick up fabric, elastic and completed or partially completed masks,” Liegl said.

Waupaca businesses have donated fabric for the masks.

Last week, the group also added drop-off and pickup bins at Radiant Fellowship, located at 420 N. Harrison St., Waupaca.

It did so to limit contact with others.

Liegl said completed masks are dropped off at ThedaCare-Waupaca and then taken to Gunderson Cleaners to be cleaned and sanitized before going back to the hospital.

“Even if you can only sew five of them, and it’s going to take you a week, it’s something you can do,” she said.

Face shields

Tim Pucillo is 3D printing and laser cutting face shields for ThedaCare Medical Center-Waupaca.

The Waupaca Area Public Library, Gusmer Enterprises and Waupaca Foundry are among those helping him.

Pucillo owns TAP Creative in Waupaca.

He had just started his laser engraving business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“I put it to the side and focused my attention on this,” Pucillo said.

His wife Kelly is a family practice physician at ThedaCare Physicians-Waupaca.

“Like anyone, they’re people with families, too,” he said.

Pucillo credits ThedaCare for having things in place, but said staff worry about being over-run.

He saw Facebook posts about groups sewing masks or laser cutting face shields.

Engineers would post their files, and others would take those files and make them better, Pucillo said.

“I took one file. The first thing I noticed was it was too big for my wife’s head and too big for my head,” he said. “And I have a big head.”

Pucillo kept working on it and refining it.

“I made a bunch of additions,” he said. “I did it. I cut the shield. I gave it to my wife. She absolutely loved it.”

Pucillo said the nice thing about the design is it pushes the mask off the face a little so it does not fog up when being worn.

She took it into ThedaCare for approval, and they loved it as well, Pucillo said.

He said it is great for the hospital to have them if they need them.

On March 27, Pucillo posted information about it on his TAP Creative Facebook, including a link to his file.

That link is http://gofile.me/4sSPb/GiEv0HcDC.

He said if more people could 3D print frames, he could laser cut the shields.

In about a week, he did about 20 face shields.

He can do about four per day.

“I haven’t stopped since I started,” Pucillo said.

City pitches in

Sue Abrahamson, the youth librarian at Waupaca’s public library, saw his post and responded to him immediately.

She told Pucillo the library has a 3D printer, but the library is closed.

Abrahamson told Library Director Peg Burington about what Pucillo was doing.

Burington then called City Administrator Aaron Jenson who supported the idea of the library’s 3D printer being used for the effort.

The city has been collecting donations of PPE at City Hall, so “it was pretty exciting when we found out the library could help out in that fashion,” Jenson said.

Patsy Servey, the library’s adult services librarian, is trained to set up new jobs on the 3D printer.

On March 30, she picked up the printer, cart and supplies and transported all of it to her home.

“I think it was 10 a.m. when I started printing,” she said. “We’re printing just the frame.”

Servey said it takes about three hours to print one frame.

“I can get about four done in a day,” she said. “We’ve been looking for opportunities to put it to use. It was really a team effort.”

Abrahamson said, “It gives us a little bit of purpose. Resources at the library aren’t just books.”

Pucillo also heard from a man who has a 3D printer, as well as from the foundry and Gusmer Enterprises.

“I think it’s really made me proud of the Waupaca area businesses and people,” he said.

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