News from Neighbors
Volunteer “Angels” deliver crucial supplies to WCDH
WRAY GAZETTE, April 1 — On Monday morning, Phil Rosnik took off from Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport with 85 pounds of hand sanitizer in the cargo hold of his Cessna TR152. Destination: Wray Community District Hospital.
It’s not a typical flight for Rosnik, who’s a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight West, a charitable aviation organization that arranges free air transportation for people who need to travel long distances to get to their nonemergency medical appointments. AFW has 1,800 pilots across Colorado and 11 other Western states.
The flight was part of a monumental statewide effort by the Colorado Hospital Association to get urgently needed supplies to the state’s rural hospitals.
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Operation: Blessed Beef
AKRON NEWS-REPORTER, April 1 — In times of turmoil, the nation comes together. That sentiment is even more true in small communities. Even in tough times, rural Americans are still finding ways to spread kindness.
Just over a week ago, an anonymous donor reached out to Lacie Harman of the Washington County Cattlewomen’s Association and felt the need to give back to the communities near and dear to their heart. They knew that small grocery stores were becoming scarce. Harman also informed the donor of meal programs county schools were implementing, and from there, a team of volunteers took off in a whirlwind project.
The donor purchased 5,200 pounds of ground beef from a United States Department of Agriculture plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but in order to get it out of the plant, it had to meet boxing requirements. A group of volunteers drove three and a half hours one way and packed up all the meat and waited for it to make its trip to Colorado. After plans to transport it here fell through, a few gentlemen from Julesburg made a 26-hour round trip to pick up the meat and began to deliver it along the way.
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3D printed masks help fill supply gap
JULESBURG ADVOCATE, April 3 — Zach Ruder of IT-Works 3D, a division of Nova Technologies Inc., in Julesburg, answered a call to provide 24 face shields for the Sedgwick County Health Center. The shields will be used to protect medical staff from the infectious COVID-19 virus.
Ruder was able to find the initial pattern for the shields online through Prusa Research. Trying different variations and modifying the design, medical staff of the health center were able to choose from a design that would work best for them.
Ruder is 3D printing 24 of the masks using all four of IT-Works 3D in-house printers. The printers themselves were modified to allow for a larger print nozzle, enabling faster print times for the shield production. “Twenty-four shields doesn’t seem like a lot,” said Ruder, “so we are ready to print more whenever there would be a need for more.”
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