Church project to benefit the homeless

By REVIS BLAYLOCK

NEA Town Courier

Manila First Baptist Sunday school class and youth group have partnered in a project to benefit the homeless. The youth group will make their fourth mission trip to New Orleans, La., during this year’s spring break. As part of their mission trip each year, they meet and minister to the homeless. New Orleans has a large population of homeless. Each year they take bags filled with toiletries to distribute as they outreach. This year they will be adding durable sleeping mats made from plastic shopping bags. The process, called "plarning," involves cutting regular plastic shopping bags into strips and crocheting them into mats.

Paula McArthur, member of the Gleason Sunday School Class at the Manila First Baptist Church, discovered the plarn sleeping mats when she visited a church in Holly Spring that was sending the mats to Ukraine refugees. She brought the idea and one of the mats home and the idea sparked the interest of other Sunday school class members and the youth. She said a church in Paragould and one in Bono are also making the mats.

All of the volunteers agreed it is unbelievable how plastic sacks can be recycled into beautiful sleeping mats that are so durable.

There is a lot of work that goes into making the mats. The plastic bags have to be straightened and hand pressed, measured and cut into strips, tied together, and then crocheted with a Q needle.

It is a joint effort from start to finish. Not everyone crochets but it is a process and there is something for everyone to do including preparing and cutting the bags, etc. Members of the Sunday school class and other volunteers meet in the Family Life Center on Wednesday mornings to work on the project. The youth meets with the group once a month and they work together. A few of the youth are learning to crochet and others work to press, cut and tie the bags.

It takes about two weeks to crochet one of the sleeping mats. Each mat is made up of 450 bags.

The group has about 17 mats completed. Their goal is to have 100 ready to take to New Orleans in the spring.

“We always need more shopping bags,” McArthur said “We appreciate the donations. People can drop their plastic bags at the office at the Family Life Center at the First Baptist Church.”

They are also planning to place a bin/box and collect bags at Farmers Market in Manila to help with the project.

“If anyone is interested in working on this project with us and learning how to make the mats, they are welcome to join us on Wednesdays,” McArthur said. “We meet from 9-11 a.m. at the Family Life Center and work together.”

A lot of the work is done at home.

“We enjoy the fellowship every Wednesday and it is really great for us elderly people to connect with our youth,” McArthur said.

In addition to the work they are doing creating the sleeping mats, they are collecting combs and brushes and other items to distribute in New Orleans.

One member of the youth group, Matt Murray, will be making his fourth trip to New Orleans. He, along with several other youths, is learning to crochet the mats. Others are helping in the preparation.

“I think it will mean a lot to be able to hand a homeless person one of these mats and tell him or her that we made this for you because we love and care about you,” Murray said. “We want to show the love of Jesus and this is a good way to show we care. New Orleans has one of the highest homeless populations anywhere. Many people live under the overpasses. There are whole communities that are like family to each other. We appreciate all donations of bags or other items. I do ask that people pray for us and the people we are ministering to.”

The mats are weather resistant, sturdy, lightweight and easy to roll up and carry.

Murray said the first year they went they had about eight or 10 young people, the second year only four were able to go. Due to Covid they did not get to go one year but had a good turnout with about 20 last spring for the 2022 trip.

The youth group is made up of students in the seventh through the 12th grades. Larry Chastain is the youth director. The group stays at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on their New Orleans trip and ministers at a variety of places such as the food pantry, handing out toiletry bags, etc.

“We hope to reach our goal of 100 for the New Orleans trip and if we make more, we will add the mats to the boxes of clothes and supplies we send to Ukraine,” McArthur said.