ST. GEORGE — The St. George Rotary Club recently donated 1,000 face shields to the Southwest Utah Public Health Department. The shields were made by the Rotary Club as part of its COVID-19 response through the Utah District of Rotary Clubs.
“It was unanimous that the Health Department, which is kind of the first line of defense in all of this, receive those, and they have taken the responsibility to distribute those,” Linda Sappington, a member of the St. George Rotary Club, said.
The club got the idea for the face shield production and donation from a Rotary Club in California. That club has produced 55,000 face shields to help with personal protective equipment shortages.
Sappington said the club is taking the COVID-19 pandemic seriously.
“We hit two million (cases), and we’ve had more then a hundred thousand deaths in the country. This is not a game,” Sappington said. “It’s a serious situation, so whatever we can do as rotarians, we wanted to jump in and help in any way we can. This is how we did it.”
Sappington said the face shield donation idea also arose out of concern about usage of face masks and shields use in the St. George area.
She described it as frightening to see not many people wearing masks at the grocery store, noting that the Rotary Club’s donation is an effort to protect not only people in the community but also themselves as club members.
“Our motto is service above self, so I hope that puts our service mindset in perspective because we are all about service in the community and in the world,” Sappington said.
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