ONE OF Bradford's largest schools is the third-biggest producer of visors and scrubs bags in the country and has even posted some vital equipment to Australia.
Hanson Academy, in Swain House Road, has continued its fantastic effort to meet the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) on the coronavirus crisis frontline.
The school has manufactured and distributed more than 4,500 visors to various locations across the city and North of England, receiving more than 5,000 requests and orders in total.
This is just over seven times the amount Hanson had produced less than two weeks ago.
The visors have been sent to the NHS, hospitals (BRI, Airedale, St Luke’s, Birmingham, Manchester, Harrogate and Stockport), care homes, pharmacies, doctor's surgeries, district nurses, the ambulance service and West Yorkshire Police.
Deputy Headteacher, Sarah Welsh, said they've even sent visors to Sydney, in Australia.
Staff were the ones initially producing the equipment, but some school children of key workers have got involved now too.
Hanson is currently acting as a "hub" school for vulnerable children and pupils of key workers.
Jacob Wright, 10, a Year 5 student at Grove House Primary School and Olivia Phillips, 11, a pupil at Hanson wanted to get involved due to their parents first-hand experience on the frontline.
Jacob's mum manages a number of care homes and Hanson has provided her teams with 100 visors.
His dad is also a policeman and his grandma is a nurse.
Olivia was keen to help with the project as her mum works at the local hospital and her dad delivers medication to hospitals and pharmacies.
The school has also continued its efforts in making dust bags to keep scrubs in.
By using clean old duvet covers and pillow cases, Debbie Daykin, a D&T Technician and former nurse, and many other staff members (both in and out of school) have managed to rack up almost 1,000 bags.
These have been delivered to hospitals now and work is underway on manufacturing scrubs themselves.
This is in collaboration with Yorkshire Scrubs.
Deputy Headteacher, Sarah Welsh, said: "The recipients are so grateful for the visors and the dust bags - we have already received a number of photographs and thank you messages for the visors.
"These include Bradford Royal Infirmary, ICU, Stockport NHS, Manchester NHS, Harrogate Hospital and Birmingham NHS.
"A number of schools nationally have contributed to the production of PPE.
"Hanson have produced the most visors and scrubs bags in Yorkshire and sit third in the country.
"We have also produced felt hearts for ICU and artwork for the hospitals.
"Hanson School are really proud to be able to support our local community and the NHS.
"Although we set out to make 200 visors and 50 dust bags - we didn’t envisage the demand and we are proud to have made over 4,500 visors and almost 1,000 dust bags so far."
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