Sneaker giant New Balance is preparing to roll out massive amounts of protective face masks.

The face shields are being produced in the company’s Massachusetts and Maine factories and should be ready by mid-April to aid the fight against coronavirus, the Boston-based company announced Friday.

“We just felt a responsibility to step up and provide for those heroes on the front line,” New Balance Executive Vice President Dave Wheeler told the Herald.

The two factories — including one right in Lawrence — aim to produce up to 100,000 masks weekly that can be “confidently used by frontline medical staff” in Massachusetts and Maine.

New Balance made its first prototype of the masks from sneaker materials less than a week ago, and by looking at pictures, sneaker heads will immediately recognize laces repurposed as ear bands and shoe fabrics as the masks themselves.

The current masks are “heat-pressed,” according to New Balance, which means they’re not sewn or perforated, allowing for extra protection.

And the way their sneakers fit feet? That’s how they want their masks to fit faces.

“Fit is really important in the mask world,” said Wheeler, noting that the mask’s repurposed elastic shoelaces let the wearer pull it as tight to his or her face as needed.

New Balance says it will not profit from this production, “pursuing break-even pricing and/or donations for the face mask,” according to a release from the company. By next week, the company will have about 150 associates working on PPE production, from research and design to assembly.

The local company is also experimenting with ways they can produce and supply other personal protective equipment, including medical gowns and foot coverings.

But most notably is what may be on the near horizon. New Balance has just partnered with MIT to develop more sophisticated fabrics that would serve as better filters, and bump their masks up to the surgical category.

“We built a really great product and will improve on it from there,” Wheeler said. “We can’t make any promises, but we have a lot of smart engineers working hard on it right now.”