Teens Give Back

Part Two:

           Last month, Calhoun County teens started making sleeping mats for the homeless as part of the Calhoun County Library’s Teen Night: Give Back initiative. The mats are made from plastic shopping bags and nothing else. This design was chosen for many reasons: plastic bags are easy to obtain, simple to clean, conduct heat, waterproof, and bug resistant. Because they're made of plastic, the mats are ideal in wet conditions to provide a waterproof barrier to those sleeping on the ground. Once these mats are completed, they will be donated to the closest homeless shelter.

             Last month, the teenagers began to prepare the plastic bags needed and continued this process during their first meeting in February. After all, each mat takes anywhere from 800 to 1,000 plastic bags to complete. That’s a lot of plastic kept out of our landfills!

             The room quickly became filled with plastic bags, but no one minded the mess. The teens created an assembly line that started with cutting around each flattened plastic bag to create a series of circular rings, followed by balling them up, and finally, placing them to the side to keep the line moving. It was a seamless process that was entirely their own. It helped that they had the fun movie Jumanji to watch to keep their minds as busy as their hands!

            Our next Teen Night: Give Back session will be Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 5 PM. During this time, the talented crafters of the Library’s Bee Creative program, which meets at the same time as Teen Night, will be joining the teens. They will teach the teens how to loop these plastic rings together so that they will have one long plastic chain. This chain is called plarn, short for plastic yarn. The teens will then learn how to crochet the plarn using giant crochet hooks to create the finished mats.

            Anyone between the ages of 12 and 17 who would like to be a part of this humanitarian and environmentally-friendly project is encouraged to come!

            If you are a crafter who would like to join in this collaboration to help teach and encourage teens, please mark your calendar! 

            We would love to make as big of an impact as possible so we can donate many mats for the homeless!