Ryley resident makes face masks for his community

What started out as a small 3-D printing project of little ear plastic helpers for surgical masks soon became Ryley resident Joel Schmidt’s way to help his community and frontline workers.

“I have a friend that is a nurse at the U of A hospital,” Schmidt said. “I asked her if it would be helpful for me to print those and she said yes so I did a couple dozen. I knew that there were shortages for masks and figured that I had the means to try and help.”

But what is touching is Schmidt doing this for free to help people who aren’t able to find masks and might not have the means to get any.

“I’m not charging, and that’s because I have seen so many people out there hoarding supplies with the intent to resell for profit and it upset me so much that I refuse to accept any money even though the masks have cost me a few hundred out of pocket,” Schmidt explained. “I’ve been enjoying myself printing all these cool masks, and I enjoy helping people, so the decision was easy.” . . . contd.