Bags to Mat project serves others while building community

July 16, 2024

Over and under, over and under.

Shelby County Catholics have undertaken a new project that recycles plastic bags by making them into sleeping mats for the homeless. In addition to recycling and helping the needy, they’re building community as interested parishioners at nearby parishes join in.

It started when Betty Foxhoven, of St. Joseph Parish in Earling, read an article about another church making the mats.

“I thought, what a nice way to use plastic bags that everybody accumulates in their house,” she said. “It’s been a good project. All of a sudden, we’re getting other people coming in and asking if they could learn how to do that.”

The effort began during Lent as a corporal work of mercy.

“In Lent, we should do almsgiving for the poor,” Foxhoven said. ‘In every way, this is our almsgiving for the poor.”

Parishioners from St. Joseph in Earling and St. Peter in Defiance started the effort. Then a group from St. Mary in Portsmouth came with plastic bags. It takes about 480 plastic grocery bags to make one mat. The mats will be donated to New Visions in Council Bluffs.

On one spring day, a group worked on a window frame that was used to hold the pieces in place while they weaved the bags into a mat. Another mat was being made on an old quilting frame.

“I came up to the fish fry and they had it displayed in the corner,” said Zita Smith, of Portsmouth. She brought a big bag of plastic bags.

"It’s really neat. I just thought, anything we can do to help. It takes a long time to make one mat and there’s a lot of homeless. I thought this is something they can use.”