A Camden County family has come together to help health care workers not only in their own family, but across the state as well.

Bob Quaile is a musician and professor. But during the quarantine, he has started to learn a new skill – how to make face shields. He says that he got the idea from his niece who is a nurse.

“She actually sent us a picture, ‘Can anybody make these?’ And then my son-in-law said, ‘I know how to do that. We’ll cut the plastic for you.’ And we just tried to develop it,” Quaile says.

 

Quaile says that his son-in-law brought home some flat pieces of plastic and cut them into shape.

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“And then we had to figure out a way to curve them,” he says. “We ended up taking some sheets of plastic and putting them in our oven on a pizza steel, heating them up and doing some trial and error to see what was the right temperatures and how long.”

They ended up making over a dozen shields. Twelve went to Quaile’s niece’s hospital and the others will go to other family members who work on the front line.

“My daughter is working today, so we’re worried about her,” he says.

Quaile is already planning to produce more shields as soon as they get the materials in. He says that it is his way to give back.

“I think everybody is doing what you can. There’s nothing else to do, you can try your best and that’s all that you can do,” he says.

Quaile is one of 11 children. He says that many members of his extended family work in hospitals in southern New Jersey. He says that his sisters are helping to sew masks for hospital staff and nursing homes.