LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Lexmark is one business that’s helping use it’s resources to build personal protective equipment and donate it to Kentuckian on the front line.

Mayor Linda Gorton echoed Governor Beshear, asking Kentucky businesses to step up and help make personal protective equipment Monday.

For about two weeks Lexmark has been doing just that.

“We’re a printer company, we don’t make medical devices,” Eric Langevin, overseeing the face shields project, said. 

But now, there’s a team of about 15 people at Lexmark making face shields.

 “This story started over the backyard fence of Lexmarker and an emergency department doctor at Baptist Health,” Kelly Tingle, senior manager said.

Two neighbors chatting about life, led to Lexmark making nearly 600 face shields a week for Central Baptist Health hospital workers.

Tingle and Langevin said they’re grateful their company was willing to one hundred percent back the initiative.

“You got to listen. And if you listen and can deliver this is what happens, it’s awesome,” Tingle said.

Langevin says his sister is an ICU nurse in San Francisco, so for him, and a lot of the workers on his team, it’s a passion project.

“It makes it a lot easier to put in some extra work and to do some of the stuff that we don’t normally do and it’s invigorating and the whole team feeds off of it,” Langevin said.

Tingle says the company has been working with Kentucky Emergency Management and other companies about how to increase production. But with a national demand for PPE it’s not easy to get everything they need.

“We are looking for the same type of things everybody else is looking for,” Tingle siad. “Elastic right now is really hard to find.”

Despite that, Langevin says Lexmark isn’t done helping. The team is working on about five more projects it hopes to see to fruition.