TWO brothers from Wrexham who kickstarted a not-for-profit business producing face visors for local healthcare workers have received a funding boost from a charitable foundation.

In March, Rebecca Sparey-Taylor and her husband Graham challenged their two sons - 13-year-old Joseph and 11-year-old Isaac - to build the 3D printer that they received for Christmas and planned to use to make their favourite Minecraft and Pokémon characters.

With both their school closed and a house move cancelled due to lockdown, their parents decided that the 3D printer seemed a good way of filling long days at home.

The boys were inspired to make 3D printed face visor frames to help out during the pandemic.

An appeal to the local community for some assistance was met with such enthusiasm that the project swiftly grew to become the largest part of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s (BCUHB) registered community supply chain of 3D-printed face visors - working around the clock based in Ysgol Clywedog and in association with AVOW.

Support from local small businesses, clubs and individuals resulted in PPE Hwb Wrecsam being loaned thirty 3D printers from the Wrexham and Chester area whilst drawing in volunteers across a wide range of experiences and ages.

When BCUHB declared they had sufficient supply, volunteers felt moved to support those care workers, frontline workers and key workers beyond the responsibility of the health board - so PPE Hwb Wrecsam CIC was formed.

Rebecca Sparey-Taylor said. “We have a fantastic team of volunteers. Some have tech backgrounds, but we also have some with no experience, including relatives of NHS workers.”

As the move out of lockdown continued and demand increased, PPE Hwb Wrecsam developed an injection mould for their visor frames which allowed them to move away from 3D printing to high quality injection moulding.

With this development, PPE Hwb Wrecsam was able to increase their capability to produce frames to up to 30,000 a week. The face visors have been awarded a CE Mark Category III, which is the gold standard for PPE.

The community interest group provides their face visors free-of-charge and is funded entirely by donations.

With requests coming in from small businesses, the deaf community, care workers, counsellors, retail workers, volunteers, charities and shielding individuals to name but a few, it became necessary to speed up production of the visor screens and retaining bands.

In a bid to achieve this, PPE Hwb Wrecsam contacted the Steve Morgan Foundation for a grant to buy a Clicker Press and were awarded £2,130 by the Steve Morgan Foundation Covid-19 Emergency Fund, which paid for a secondhand Clicker Press.

Management team member Alison Thompson said: “The grant from the Steve Morgan Foundation has made a massive difference.

“The face visors are provided free-of-charge and all the donations go back into keeping the project going. The need for face shields hasn’t gone away and we’re now looking at starting to produce a three-layered face mask.”

Jane Harris, director of regional funding, said: “It is an amazing story of community pulling together in their time of need and we were delighted to be able to support them."