Helping NHS heroes and protecting our community – Cardiff and Vale College PPE Appeal

@CAVC is looking for donations of Personal Protective Equipment #PPE which it will then distribute to #NHS and key workers across the Cardiff Region 

CAVC is linking with its network of employers and community contacts to source much needed PPE and make it available to those who need it in the community. Anyone can help – and here’s how.

If you have a stock of PPE in your business/ possession, you can donate it to CAVC which will make it available to front-line staff at this time. We are not just looking for donations – if you are a supplier of PPE and have available stocks now and in future weeks, please let us know. We are also looking to generate funds to purchase stocks and make them available to those who need them at this time.

We are looking for:

• Masks
• Gloves
• Gowns
• Goggles

Ideally these would be the types commonly used in healthcare settings. However, if you have any of the above kit usually used within a different sector, for example construction or automotive, it still may be very valuable to help protect some frontline staff where some protection is better than none. 

To donate, or if you have any questions around stocks you may have to donate or supply the College with, please contact us via: [email protected].

The College has already donated our stocks of the above usually used by staff and students in places like science labs or construction/ automotive workshops/ catering.  

Product Design Lecturer John Johansson has also been putting his 3D printing skills to good use, creating Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) visors for distribution among NHS staff.

With the help of CAVC’s Estates team, John has taken delivery of the Product Design department’s two 3D printers, and is operating them from home. He has just finished visor number 20 in a process that takes more than ten hours per visor.

John has also been busy contacting past and present students who have 3D printers, and several of them have started work on their own visors.

“The 3D printing community is great, and has been churning out this of stuff since as soon as word went out that there was a shortage,” John said. “It has been all over social media how those of us with access to printers can help.

“It felt remiss to have our department’s printers standing idle when they could be doing some good.”

John urges anyone with access to a 3D printer to get involved. A voluntary organisation, 3Dcrowduk, has been set up distribute the masks and provide information on the correct specifications for the visors.

Thanks to people like John, 3Dcrowduk has already created more than 80,000 visors and has received requests for a further 500,000.

Other members of CAVC staff doing their bit to help include Health and Social Care Lecturer Tracy Adams who has returned to nursing and Fashion and Textiles Lecturer Kerry Cameron who has joined a group sewing scrubs.

Cardiff and Vale College Principal Kay Martin said: “My thanks go to John, and all the other CAVC staff who are going that extra mile with acts of kindness and community support.

“We are at the heart of the communities that we serve which is why doing all we can to help those who need it is so important. Everyone has to pull together during times such as these.

“That is why CAVC is linking with our network of employers and community contacts to source much needed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and make it available to those who need it in our community. Anyone can help.”