A stitch in time: how everyone from a pair of sisters to community colleges are banding together to combat California’s PPE shortage
Since mid-March, Nareh Manooki, has been quarantined. The 35 year old has been social distancing because of COVID-19, taking care of her four year-old son and working from her Burbank home. Her schedule was one of consistency, and involved lectures online to her students at Glendale Community College, where she teaches in the engineering department.
But as the days went by, Manooki began to feel helpless about what was happening around her. News of PPE shortages, COVID-19 deaths and the pandemic fallout seeped into her mind, causing distress and uncertainty. Without medical experience, Manooki didn’t know how she could help fight the battle.
Then she began thinking outside the box.
“I thought, we have 3D printers sitting in the lab at school and they’re not doing anything,” Manooki said. “And maybe I can help make the PPE parts people need.”
Manooki got to work. She called her department chair at GCC and school administrators to ask for approval. Once they signed off, she brought home four 3D printers and the materials needed to create face shields while the school ordered more supplies.
The next step: research and find the face shield design, tested and approved for clinical use by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Once that was tackled, she could begin creating the PPE.
Now, she creates about 20 face shields a day and the process starts as soon as she wakes up. Her schedule: get up at 8:30 a.m.; start the 3D printers; feed and take care of her child; assign lesson plans and work with her students; check the 3D printers two and a half hours later to take the completed parts off; put new materials in and repeat the process over and over again. But even once the parts are built, the work isn’t done.
“After I 3D print it, we have to sand down the band edges so it’s not sharp, I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable,” Manooki said.
“After that, I have to coordinate the deliveries. It’s quite a bit of work.”
Days into her new project, Manooki recruited some volunteers to help including one of her students. She then realized her small team wasn’t going at it alone. In fact — there was an entire statewide effort involving California community colleges that began at the end of March and to date, they’ve delivered and donated 9,000 face shields across the state. This effort is being led by Lisa Kiplinger Kennedy, Regional Director of Business and Entrepreneurship for the Inland Empire/Desert Region of California Community Colleges and her counterpart, Micah Merrick in northern California.
Kiplinger Kennedy got choked up when she spoke about the effort.
“You see so much negativity all the time in the world and to see everyone pulling together just wanting to do something for each other in a very positive way — it’s heartwarming,” she said.
According to Kiplinger Kennedy, 43 of the 115 community colleges in the state have access to 3D printers and are willing to take part in the initiative and out of those, 21 are currently actively participating. Some of those colleges include College of the Desert, San Bernardino Valley College and Glendale Community College, where Manooki works.
Since Manooki began she’s made several hundred face shields, donating 400 to hospitals, medical facilities and nursing homes around the southern California region. But the requests continue to come in daily.
The statewide effort has received over 20,000 requests for face shields and over 5,000 requests for adjustable mask straps from 63 healthcare facilities including Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, CA, JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio, CA and Providence Health Care Group, a consortium of nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the country, with the bulk, about 39, in California.
Carol Wagner, Director of Clinical Initiatives at Providence in the Inland Empire area of California said they were struggling to find face shields for their staff before the community colleges stepped in.
“So far we’ve been able to pick up 350 face shields which is just miraculous,” Wagner said. “Face shields were one of the more difficult things to obtain so this was very, very helpful.”
“I think it’s amazing they researched, stepped up and filled the need in their community.”
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, there is still a severe PPE shortage in the United States for nurses and medical professionals on the front lines and recent estimates show more respirators and surgical masks will be needed than are currently available.
There is also a shortage in basic cloth facemasks and face coverings for everyday Americans because of a high demand. These masks are now required for all Americans when stepping out in public according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Los Angeles, that has been reinforced by the LA County Safer At Home Order. The order was issued in hopes of protecting people who may come in contact with someone who has the virus but is asymptomatic. But it’s become difficult to find masks as many stores are backlogged with the influx of people ordering.
That’s where Melanie Manooki, Nareh’s sister, decided to jump in and help too.
“When I tried to order masks for myself I noticed it was really hard to even get it for myself,” Manooki said.
“So I thought, I have time, let me buy a sewing machine, and fabric and see what happens.”
Manooki taught herself how to sew. The first mask she made took a few hours. But after trial and error, she successfully began to make cloth masks following the CDC guidelines. She is using colorful fabrics and prints with the hope that she can brighten the day of the medical professionals and everyday people she donates to.
“I can’t come up with a cure but I can help and maybe add a few smiles,” Manooki said.
Manooki has already made about 50 since starting in April and has donated to various medical professionals, including Ania Moradkhani, a nurse practitioner at Cancer Center of Southern California and her team.
Moradkhani, who has worked at the cancer center for about two and a half years, says because the facility is not a hospital setting they don’t carry an abundance of filtered masks.
“Because of a shortage of supplies, we haven’t been able to find them and if you do, they’re so expensive. Our medical suppliers have been sold out for weeks,” Moradkhani said.
“Melanie is making a very big difference in not only helping our clinic but the nurses and the patients.”
Manooki has been paying out of her own pocket to buy the materials she’s using; her sister Nareh says she’s paying with her high electric bill. The California community college sector used their own materials and equipment and have been fundraising to help with the massive effort. They have received numerous donations including $5,000 from PG&E and $2,790 on their Facebook fundraiser. In recent weeks, the colleges have partnered with General Atomic, an American energy and defense corporation and Exquadrum, an engineering corporation. OnTrac delivery service has also come on board to pick up and deliver the face shields for free in the Inland Empire and San Diego regions.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues creating uncertainty and a void in the medical supply system, one thing is for sure: the California community college system and people like the Manooki’s will be there to pick up the pieces and provide support where it’s needed.
“We’re a community and we want to help each other out,” Nareh Manooki said. “To see this huge need and we have a way we can help with it — it was a good way for us to do something positive.”
