(Do not think I am putting this on the blog to have anybody collect t-shirts. We have enough. It is just so you can see what kind of response we are getting. It makes our church seem pretty impressive.)
Recycled T-shirts woven into sleeping mats for Haiti's poor
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| Hugo resident Gretchen Boyd has collected about 600 shirts that will be used to create thick sleeping mats for homeless in haiti. - Photo by Paul Dols |
by Debra Neutkens
Staff Writer
Published:
Wednesday, December 22, 2010 3:02 PM CST
HUGO — Old T-shirts are providing a small amount of comfort to Haiti’s homeless.
A South Dakota church is collecting the cotton discards and weaving them into thick mats for the multitudes who sleep on the ground.
Hugo resident Gretchen Boyd is helping the small congregation collect the shirts. She has about 600 in her garage at the moment waiting to make the trip to tiny LaBolt, S.D.
Her great-grandparents attended LaBolt Evangelical Covenant Church, as did her grandparents and mother; Boyd and her sister were baptized there. The ladies in the congregation felt woven mats made from old T-shirts was a worthwhile ministry for the earthquake-stricken inhabitants of Haiti, so the call went out.
Boyd felt the collection drive tied in nicely with a “Pay it Forward” program started Nov. 6 by the promotional product industry in which she works. The idea is to promote volunteerism as a way to build a sense of community and make a positive impact, she said. “T-shirts happen to be a big part of what we sell, so it’s a nice fit.”
After years working in radio, the small business owner started Boyd’s Promos over a year ago, selling imprintable marketing and promotional items. Before that, she was a disc jockey, or on-air personality, for KTIS, a Christian station, and then sold advertising for CBS radio. Boyd left the corporate world of broadcast to “be my own boss and focus on things important to me.”
One priority is devoting time and energy to the Haiti program. “It happened to be something my family’s church was working on and I wanted to support the program,” she said.
Promotional material Boyd hands to friends and clients describe the T-shirt program and the plight of Haiti’s 90 million inhabitants. Statistics are included like the number who live in poverty: About 80 percent and the number who never go to school: almost half. Unemployment is 70 percent.
“The need is great” she said. “Thousands of children are sleeping directly on cold and hard dirt floors.”
T-shirts are cut into long strips that are tightly twisted and crocheted into the woven mats. “They’re like the old rag rugs made by past generations,” Boyd explained. It takes about 20 T-shirts per mat.
She is also offering a 10 percent discount off the purchase of new T-shirt orders from churches, sports organizations or businesses that donate five or more shirts.
She is making the three-hour trek to South Dakota early next month with the hundreds of shirts collected to date. No doubt, it will be nice to have her garage back, at least temporarily. Boyd is collecting shirts as long as people choose to donate.
