Local college employees recycle plastic bags into sleeping mats for the homeless

With holiday shopping already beginning for some, a group of Lord Fairfax Community College employees and other volunteers have a great use for all those plastic bags in which shoppers bring their treasures home.

Every other week, they get together and recycle plastic bags into a material that can be knitted or crocheted to create a sleeping mat for a homeless person.

“When we get the plastic, we make a product called plarn, or plastic yarn,” says LFCC education support specialist Jill Manuel, who started the initiative at the Fauquier Campus. “We cut the plastic and then we link it together to create yardage and then we will knit and crochet it into a mat.”

She says it takes about 700 plastic bags to make one sleeping mat. The thicker and heavier the bag, the better the plarn.

The mats will be donated to Micah Ecumenical Ministries in Fredericksburg.

Manuel began working on the mats with a friend, and when her colleagues heard about her project, they too, wanted to get involved. Fauquier Campus Dean Caroline Wood offered space at LFCC for the volunteers to do their plarning. They’ve met several times already. Manuel says.

“I’m so excited that it’s taken on life like it has,” she says. “I’ve been collecting bags for more than a year and I didn’t expect this much support. It was just something I wanted to do to help out my community.”

There are no age requirements for those interested in helping out with the plarning.  Donations of plastic bags are appreciated at both the Fauquier Campus and the Middletown Campus

To learn more about the project or becoming a volunteer, contact Manuel at (865) 919-6206, jmanuel@lfcc.edu or mom22boyz@msn.com.

Those wishing to donate bags to the Middletown Campus, should contact Kristin Iden at kiden@lfcc.edu.