By Dakota Gunnare, Editor in Chief
This winter, thanks to the crochet skills of a local community member, 10 homeless people will have a bed to sleep on.
Mary Fisher is a former volunteer at Aurora Hartford Hospital who decided to crochet together plastic bags to create sleep mats for the homeless. The mats will be distributed throughout the Greater Milwaukee area with the help of Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit dedicated to combating homelessness. Fisher’s idea was to have the mats ready for use before the season’s first snowfall.
Through an unusual series of connections, this plan soon involved the hospital, a high school sophomore, and a science teacher at West Bend West High School.
Mary Fisher was inspired to make plastic bag beds after a conversation with a friend who is also passionate about helping the homeless.
“We started talking about what else we could do for people in need,” Fisher said. “I thought plastic bags were great because then they’re not necessarily going immediately into a landfill so we give them some use in the meantime.”
Following a video tutorial, Fisher separates the bags into strips and ties them into plarn, or plastic yarn. From there she crochets the plarn together to create the beds.
“It’s like a sleep mat, it allows for space between the ground and the (person’s) body,” Fisher said. “It’s very lightweight so it’s easy for them to transport.”
Erin Groshek, the volunteer manager at Aurora Hartford, stayed in contact with Fisher after she left the hospital. When Groshek heard about Fisher’s efforts to help those in need she decided to collect bags at the hospital for Fisher.
“I chose to help promote this project for several reasons,” Groshek said. “It’s a great way to support others in need, and our volunteers enjoy supporting projects that help others. They love giving back to the community.”
West sophomore Mia Herdeman, a volunteer ambassador for the Aurora Hospital, saw the bag collection box and was intrigued. Herdeman is an avid environmentalist who saw this project as a great way to benefit the Earth and the community.
“I occasionally will see trash across the street or in (my) yard sometimes and oftentimes it is plastic walmart bags,” Herdeman said. “The fact that I can look at something now and go, ‘oh, we can benefit from this more than just throwing it away’ is great.”
Herdeman introduced the plastic bag project to the WBHS environment club, Saving Earth Every Day (SEED). The club voted to have Herdeman advertise the plastic bag drive. Working with Paul DeLain, West science teacher and SEED advisor, she put up posters and made announcements encouraging students to bring in bags for collection.
“All of these people who have given us these bags have made a better community and they don’t even know it,” Herdeman said.
In the end the high school and the hospital combined ended up donating 2,500 bags to further Fisher’s mission. This will yield approximately four beds.
Additional reporting by Mia Herdeman, Current Staff.
(Images courtesy of Mary Fisher.)
The West Bend Current 
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