Our Purpose
The purpose of our ministry is to provide sleeping mats for the homeless by repurposing used plastic shopping bags. This insulates people from the cold dampness of the ground and keeps plastic bags out of landfills. Valley Health Partners distributes our mats to our neighbors in need through their Street Medicine Team. See a list of other needs the Street Medicine Team has identified to help the homeless population of the Lehigh Valley.
People Who Work with Their Hands
The Lehigh Valley Mat Ministry is looking for people who enjoy working with their hands. We need people to cut plastic bags into strips, connect these strips into plastic yarn (known as plarn), and crochet the plarn into sleeping mats for the homeless. Volunteers can do any or all of these tasks to help our ministry.
- Skills needed: cutting with scissors (or a rotary cutter and mat), single crochet
- Tools needed: scissors, a bigger-sized crochet hook (size “S” is recommended), a yardstick or measuring tape
- Raw materials: clean used plastic shopping and grocery bags with soft seams (like a standard plastic grocery bag)
- Guidance: Wendy Arbushites can teach you how to do the entire process. It’s very easy! See the slideshow in the link below.
- If you need bags or have any questions, please email Wendy Arbushites at warb@rcn.com.
Here’s a slideshow of how to create a sleeping mat.
