(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- After noticing a growing number of homeless people sleeping outside in downtown Chicago, Shawne Duck wanted to help them.
So, she and a few friends and family members put together comfort bags with items they might need and handed them out.
“We wanted to offer warmth and comfort to people,” Duck tells WBBM Newsradio’s Mai Martinez.
While collecting donated items, a woman told her about sleeping mats made from plastic shopping bags that otherwise would end up in landfills.
After researching and watching tutorial videos, the group started making the mats. They came up with the name B.A.M., short for Bags and Mats for Those in Need.
It takes between 600 and 800 bags to make one mat.
“When you get the bags, you straighten them all out. Then you cut them into loops and then from the loops, you attach them to one another like a chain and wind that up into what is referred to as ‘plarn’ -- plastic yarn,” Duck explained.
That "plarn" is used to weave the 6-foot-by-3-foot mats. Each one takes 12 to 14 hours to make. B.A.M. members meet every Wednesday afternoon at Steve's Lounge in the Hegewisch neighborhood to weave and welcome any volunteers who want to help or donate.
So far, they've made and distributed about 100 sleeping mats.
Michael Hudson, who's been living on the streets for three years, recently received one of them.
“It's nice. You know, it's better than sleeping on the concrete floor, so, yeah, I appreciate it very much,” he said.
He said receiving the mat is one of the nicest things that has happened to him.
That is at the heart of what keeps B.A.M. members going, says Duck: “If they can close their eyes and have a little sense of peace, even if it's for a short time, then we know we've done a good job.”
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