You might not think much of those plastic shopping bags you’ve been hoarding in the kitchen, but a group of resourceful older women in Tennessee are putting this item to good use by helping the homeless.
Meet “The Bag Ladies.” These women from Union City found each other around two years ago at church and came up with the idea of reusing plastic bags for a noble cause.
Meeting every Thursday morning, the ladies cut donated plastic bags into strips and then tie them together in order to create what they’ve dubbed “plarn” AKA plastic yarn. They then use the plarn to crochet the sleeping mats for the homeless.
“It’s addictive,” Janice Akin told WPSD Local 6. “It gets to the point that you do two or three and you see, ‘Hey I’m actually making a difference in someone’s life,’ and you want to do more.”
On the Facebook page for Second Baptist Church in Union City ― the church where the women meet ― many people have reached out offering to donate their unused bags.
Each bed is a sizable 3-by-6 feet and takes more than 600 bags to make. They’ve already used thousands of bags this year, putting together 88 mats, some of which have gone to flood victims in Louisiana.
But given their age, the task is no easy feat. But they say it’s well worth it.
“This is not young ladies doing this,” Akin said. “This is older ladies with arthritis. And believe me, I have it. It hurts.”
To learn more about the “Bag Ladies,” check out the video above.
Last year we also wrote about an Australian centenarian who knits tiny sweaters for penguins injured in oil spills.
Age really doesn’t have to slow you down.
h/t WPSD
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