Sunday, September 28, 2014

Volunteers Help Homeless

The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) is working to bring volunteers into a collaborative project with Trinity Lutheran Church in Versailles, where they work to make crocheted mats for homeless people. A small group of the church ladies began making mats for the homeless in July of 2011. Karen Schultz, coordinator for this project, got the idea from her mother who was also working at her church with the same project. “We had a couple ladies try to make a mat and it worked, so away we went on this journey!” said Karen. RSVP got involved this year recruiting additional volunteers to work on the mats.

When the group has a supply of them completed, Pastor Bob Akins takes the mats to homeless shelters in Cincinnati, in Dayton to First Lutheran Church and St. Vincent’s, to a soup kitchen in Troy, Agape in Sidney and Safe Haven in Greenville. Karen said, “One mat even traveled to India with a missionary from the Sidney area.”

The volunteers first cut plastic grocery bags into strips and roll them into balls of “plarn” plastic yarn for this project before beginning the crochet process. A group of RSVP volunteers in Shelby County is also working on creating the plarn balls and donating to the church for the mats project. The group meets to make the mats the 1st Saturday of every month.

Donations of plastic bags are always welcome and will help with all of the programs. Bag donations can be dropped off at the Trinity Lutheran Church basement every weekday morning from 9-12 am and all day on Wednesday.

The ladies working on the mat project are: Diane Schrader, Karen Lawrence, Evelyn Frantz, Ginny Moorman, Mary Seman, Mary Buxton, Karen Schultz, Shila Magoto, Cynthia Vogel, Cindy Lewis, and Evelyn Gaier.

If you have any questions about volunteering for the project, just give Ahby Mangen, the RSVP recruiter, a call at 937-548-8002 or email her at rsvpdk@councilonruralservices.org. If you would like to volunteer in a more active position, Ahby can match you up with many of our other non-profits that need assistance also.

For more information about the programs of Council on Rural Services … programs for innovative learning, check the Web site at www.councilonruralservices.org.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured Posts

/* Track outbound links in Google Analytics */