Join us to help create waterproof mats for the homeless in our area:
Our weekly Friday meetings are on Fridays, noon to 1:30 pm in the Jerusalem/Mt. Tabor rooms of the FLC. We could use your help!
A number of women in the Friday morning Women in Faith group studied Pope Francis’s book “Church of Mercy”. Throughout the book, Pope Francis expressed concern about the wasteful habits of our “Throw Away Culture” and his deep concern for the poor and the homeless. Making waterproof sleeping mats for the homeless out of grocery bags addressed both of these concerns. Since mid-May, with the help of the teens and others, we have been working on creating the mats. It takes between 500-700 bags to make one mat. We need clean plastic grocery bags and a lot of worker bees to create the plastic yarn called plarn.
There are several steps in making these mats.
(Projects are always in progress, there is always a place to jump in and help)
- sorting the bags by color
- flattening the bags and stacking properly for transport
- Cutting each bag into 4 loops.
- Knotting the loops together to form the plastic yarn
- Crocheting the plarn into a 3’ by 6’ mat with ties and shoulder straps so that it can be rolled up and carried
Join us at one or both of our monthly ministry meetings.
Who: Anyone with a loving heart and a willing spirit
When: Fridays 12:00 pm (with additional meetings announced in the bulletin/website)
Where: Second Floor of the FLC
It is a great project for:
- Service hours
- Existing ministries looking for ways to open their ministry to giving service to others
- Great way for families to work together to give to others
- Gives shut-ins something to do to help them feel connected to their parish and community
- Great for multi-taskers—watch tv, listen to music or an audio book and keep your hands busy cutting bags or making plarn or crocheting a mat
Mercy Mats Ministry Pictures
