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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.
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