Harley-Davidson Riders Club Come Together To Produce Thousands Of Visors For The NHS & Carers

Back in March, at the height of the coronavirus outbreak, Acting Chairman of the Harley-Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain, Roger Tomlinson and his wife Fiona wanted to do something to help. With a 3D printer, they had been making small quantities of face shields, an absolutely essential piece of PPE equipment for NHS frontline workers.

After donating these to local community centres, demand was quickly growing and they were receiving new requests every day. With a substantial backlog of orders already, Roger then received a call from the NHS Supply Chain asking if they could increase production. This is where the wonderful members of the Harley-Davison Riders Club came in.

With each visor costing £2 to make, Roger and Fiona couldn’t keep up with the rising demand and cost so they made an appeal in April to their fellow club members. They had sourced an industrial 3D printer and the related materials needed to mass-produce the visors and found they had to fundraise £6,300. After creating an online fundraising page on Just Giving, the generous donations from members quickly poured in.

Soon, they had reached their £6,300 target and production began. Since then, they have used 100 kilos of plastic and 1,000 metres of elastic to make an estimated 5,000 visors! These have been donated far and wide to hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes and more. But Roger, Fiona and the Harley-Davidson Riders Club didn’t stop there. They increased their initial target to £12,000 so that they could continue to purchase materials and make these much-needed visors. So far, they have raised a fantastic £9,620.

Roger now is pleased to make this announcement:

"We at the Harley-Davidson Riders Club Great Britain believe that no frontline healthcare or community worker should be forced to put themselves at risk through lack of Personal Protection Equipment while helping others.

As from July 1, phase one is officially completed and phase 2 begins. After successfully making and supplying thousands of pieces of PPE to those who needed it, we now move on to phase two. It is now the time to liquidate the assets you all helped buy together with any surplus funds.

We will donate these funds to the air ambulance in memory of our friends in the H-DRCGB who are no longer with us."