Stoneham car shop outfits health workers fighting the coronavirus

STONEHAM, MA — A Stoneham-based custom car shop is taking time away from outfitting luxury cars to outfit medical workers during this new coronavirus pandemic. Personal protective equipment, especially face masks, are in short supply in Massachusetts hospitals and across the country as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports 213,144 cases of COVID-19 nationwide.

According to JK Automotive Design's Facebook page, staff began donating face shields made with laser cutting technology on March 24.

By March 30, the team had moved on to also make intubation boxes, also know as aerosol boxes.

Jeremy Katz, owner of JK Automative, told WCVB-TV that he is not charging health care workers who request equipment and is actually still paying employees to continue creating hundreds of pieces of gear a day. Katz started a GoFundMe for the project on Monday and by Thursday afternoon, had raised more than $27,000.

Instructions and design templates for the items were also made publicly available, so anyone with access to a laser or CNC machine could also produce protective equipment.

"We have collaborated with other fabrication shops from our industry in Alaska, Florida, Texas, California, Delaware, Boston and more, and have been able to successfully keep them up and running producing masks," Katz said on the fundraiser page. "But we still need your help!"