Tomball's "Bag Ladies" Providing a Valuable Service to Homeless Population

TOMBALL, TX -- A small group of Tomball volunteers have launched an initiative to provide a valuable service to the Homeless population.

This summer, Wilma Flanakin and Ganeen Cron, two ladies with a love of the art of crocheting, started a program at the Tomball Community Center called Mats for the Homeless, that provides mats crocheted from plastic shopping bags, to the homeless.

“This gives them a way to keep themselves dry if they have sleep outdoors, or they can roll out this mat and sit on it or put their possessions on the mat,” Flanakin said.

Flanakin said she learned of the process from her sister, who’d seen a YouTube video on Facebook, who shared it with her.

Flanankin said once she saw the video, she was pumped.

Within a short time, she and her friend Ganeen were able to attract a group of ladies who meet at the Tomball Community Center each Tuesday to crochet these mats.

The bags used in the process are the plastic shopping bags that everyone receives at supermarkets or department stores, and either are used as trash bags themselves, or are tossed out when the groceries are put away.

Flanakin and her group began collecting hundreds of new and used plastic bags that were straightened, cut into strips, and tied end to end to create what volunteer LaVerne Meade called “plarn,” or plastic yarn.

Flanakin said it can take as many as 900 of the plastic bags to make a single mat, and can take up to two weeks to crochet just one mat that is 30 inches wide by six feet long.

“We tested them out and they are pretty comfortable,” Cron said. “It’s pretty warm. It helps keep the cold and wet away.”

The ladies have also learned how to crochet drawstring bags to carry belongings, as well as purses.

In a two month time span, between June and August, the ladies and volunteers from the Boys and Girls Country were able to crochet and distribute about 10 of the mats to the Tomball Police Department and Impact Church in downtown Houston.

However, Flanakin and the other ladies who’ve been there since the beginning, have seen the an increase in the number of volunteers, and plastic bag donations in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas Day, which has helped the group produce more mats for those in need.

“We have take 11 mats and three bags to Impact Church of Christ in downtown,” Flanakin said.

Molly and Charlie Middlebrook, who founded Impact Church, have been helping with the production and distribution in the days before Christmas.

“We have a large homeless population, and these ladies say they are working on 300 mats,” Molly Middlebrook said.

Volunteers from Graceview Baptist Church in Tomball have also gotten in the Christmas crocheting spirit, as well as church groups from Spring, Waller and Montgomery, Flanakin said.

“We are really branching out,” she said.

On Dec. 13, about 20 volunteers crowded into the Tomball Community Center, donned Santa hats, and got to work.

The groups of volunteers separated and with one one group straightening and cutting segments of plastic bags into “plarn” balls, and others who were creating the new mats and bags into intricately designed and useful items.

“We sit and frantically fold and flatten....so we can get these and work on them at home,” said volunteer Janice Strom, who was actually doing this on her own until she found out about the group. “It’s a lot more fun doing this here that at home on your own. It’s fun.”

Image: Bryan Kirk, Patch Staff