HELP POMONA HOST LIONS CREATE HOMELESS MATS

Help the homeless and recycle plastic bags!  Help the Pomona Host Lions create homeless mats, where plastic bags of all varieties are cut, tied, and then crocheted into lightweight, portable, water-resistant sleeping mats for the homeless.  The mats will then be donated to local homeless shelters.

The club is holding two work parties, called PlarnFests, to create the plastic yarn (plarn), used to crochet the mats, on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 15 and 16 at 5:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 242 E. Alvarado Street, Pomona. Volunteers will be cutting the plastic bags and tie-looping them together into the plarn.  Making the plarn is easy so anyone handy with scissors can participate. Instructions will be given at each PlarnFest. Please bring your own scissors.

Anyone who knows how to crochet can be especially valuable crocheting the mats from the plarn. Bring a Q crochet hook.

The club’s homeless mats project is in support of Lion Chad Dominguez’s Mats4Homeless Eagle Scout project for Boy Scout Troop 226.  The project was created because it helps ameliorate two problems – too many plastic bags in our landfills and too many homeless sleeping on the cold, hard streets.

Lions Project Chairs Chad Dominguez and Kris Georgeson received the Lions District 4L-4 Governor’s Outstanding Project Medal in 2012 for the positive impact of the Mats4Homeless project.

In addition to participating in the PlarnFests, people can make plarn and crochet at home and donate money for supplies.  People wishing to help with this project should email pomonahostlions@gmail.com or mats4homeless@yahoo.com.