Local businesses join with 500 Gainesville volunteers to cut, sew and deliver thousands of high-quality masks needed by hospitals.





Gainesville’s Phalanx Defense Systems knows all about protective gear — it makes body armor and other safety equipment.

Now it is helping make COVID-19 protective masks as part of a community effort to overcome shortages among medical providers.

Thousands of masks and plastic face shields have been made by a corps of volunteers by hand, on 3D printers and on machines from Phalanx’s industrial cutters, and by residents using sewing machines.

Phalanx cut enough donated medical-grade material to make about 3,500 masks, said Pegeen Hanrahan, an organizer of the volunteer drive.

“Phalanx has been amazing,” Hanrahan said. “They are cutting it industrially, which means we can go from cutting with a little rotary cutter or scissors to cutting super-duper fast.”

Hanrahan is a former Gainesville city commissioner and mayor. She said another former commissioner, Todd Chase, helped arrange Phalanx’s involvement.

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Other businesses and organizations are stepping up.

Coronet Fabric Mills and Lili’s Alterations have offered to pay their workers to supplement the work of the corps of 500 volunteers.

The Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention has helped with 3D printers. University of Florida staff members are also helping with 3D printing.

The Community Foundation of North Central Florida has managed donations for materials.

“In short, it’s a whole lot of people working and it is almost entirely volunteer,” Hanrahan said.

Some of the medical-grade material is donated by Gainesville hospitals. For instance, material that is used to wrap medical instruments for sterilization in an autoclave is ordinarily thrown away. But it is being saved and used for masks, Hanrahan said.

Another $25,000 in donations has come in for material for the masks.

The masks are being distributed to Alachua County hospitals. Once word of the production got out, requests from medical institutions outside of the county started pouring in.

About 246 individuals and organizations have requested 19,200 masks.

The website at gnvcovidmask.org has instructions on making masks, information about their benefit, volunteering, requesting masks and where masks that have been made should be dropped off.

Across the county, residents have been making masks for specific medical providers and for their neighbors.

Dr. Daniel M. Duncanson, CEO of SIMEDHealth, launched a drive for homemade masks about two weeks ago. He said last week that more than 400 have been made, adding that the different patterns help brighten SIMED’s clinics.

COVID-19 has resulted in just 20 hospitalizations in Alachua County as of Wednesday but medical providers say they are having difficulty getting the equipment because of shortages nationwide.

Cloth masks are now more commonly worn by the public since government agencies have said they provide some protection from spreading and getting the illness.