On World Kindness Day, one local group is making good use out of plastic bags.
Mats for a Mission is helping the homeless and also helping the environment.
It starts with old grocery bags. Then they are cut into strips and then rolled into 'plarn balls,' or plastic yarn balls.
"It then gets turned over to the crocheters, or hookers, and they create the beautiful sleeping mats that the homeless use to sleep on," Gail Potter, founder and project coordinator of Mats for a Mission.
Potter says the mats help provide a buffer fpr those forced to sleep on the streets.
The group has made 130 mats since January and has donated them to the Fireman's Park. Each three foot by six foot mat take 50 hours to complete
"That's what I say to all of my crocheters. They are not only helping somebody less fortunate they are actually giving them a piece of them, a piece of their heart because this is filled with so much love," Potter said.
Potter also says the group is making use of the plastic bags that would normally end up in a landfill and re-purposing them.
Mats for a mission meets Friday mornings at St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3512 Clinton Street in West Seneca from 10:15 a.m. to 1 p.m. and rotate Monday's and Wednesday's at the Julia Boyer Reinstein Library, 1030 Losson Road in Cheecktowaga from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The group is looking for new members to help make the sleeping mats.
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