Helping people is their bag

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This article was published 16/03/2019 (2630 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For Tessa Whitecloud and others at 1JustCity, loving those in need and helping the city’s most vulnerable are the top goals, but the organization is also doing what it can to love the planet and be good to the environment as well.

“Our primary goal is to make sure we are supporting people and that they are getting what they need,” said Whitecloud, 1JustCity’s executive director.

“But we know that part of taking care of people is making sure they have a place to live, and of course, that includes taking care of the entire planet.”

1JustCity is a not-for-profit Winnipeg organization that works in a number of ways to help the city’s homeless and underprivileged, including offering soup kitchens in three Winnipeg locations and also offering temporary overnight shelter during the frigid winter months.

With Winnipeg’s winter temperatures dropping to dangerous and potentially fatal lows, 1JustCity has been offering overnight shelter the past three years through a partnership with St. Augustine United Church on River Avenue.

But they realized they needed mats and blankets. That is when they came up with an idea to make their own by using thousands of plastic grocery bags that would otherwise be headed for the dump.

“The first year we had mats donated to us, but the second year we had no mats and we were set to open, so our staff just started Googling ‘mats for sleep’ and came across a way to make mats out of crocheting discarded plastic grocery bags,” Whitecloud said.

“Last year we didn’t have donated mats, so we got a bunch of people together to get to work making mats out of the bags.”

Crocheting mats out of old grocery bags is no easy task, since 650 grocery bags are needed to make a single mat.

The mats were used the past two years at the River Avenue shelter, and the organization has also handed out the mats and blankets to those who may be forced to sleep on the streets, Whitecloud said.

The idea has now evolved out of necessity as Whitecloud said they found out this winter they could no longer use the mats inside their shelter because of existing fire codes.

Instead of abandoning the idea, the organization will now turn old grocery bags into backpacks that can be used by those who need a little help getting around with their belongings, Whitecloud said.

“For a lot of the people we work with, they are literally carrying with them everything they own, so it’s a way to make things a lot easier when they are trying to get around and are moving around a lot,” Whitecloud said.

“And they are really strong bags and very comfortable to carry.”

She said they are early on in their backpack-making efforts, but plan to get a crew of volunteers together to make a large number of the bags this fall to hand them out to those who need them.

Whitecloud said 1JustCity is happy to do what it can to help keep grocery bags out of the dump.

“We are helping people first, but any chance we can do something that can help the environment — we feel that it is so important, and really fits in with the overall scope of what we do,” she said. “We’re saving a lot of bags from being thrown away, and a big part of taking care of people and loving people is showing love for the Earth.”

Caring for the environment also fits in with the work 1JustCity does towards reconciliation with the local Indigenous community, she added.

“It is very important for us to do our part for reconciliation, and part of reconciliation is working to take care of the land,” Whitecloud said.

1JustCity is also finding other ways to help those in need while helping the environment.

Whitecloud said they work with a number of local grocery stores and restaurants to keep food waste out of landfills, while at the same time serving meals to those who are hungry.

“1JustCity does a lot of different things to protect the environment, and a big thing we do is divert wasted food that would be thrown out and instead we divert it to feed the hungry,” she said.

Whitecloud said that as they continue to put their efforts into transforming old grocery bags into useful items, she hopes more people will come forward to volunteer their time to help them with their work, or come forward with plastic bags to donate.

“For anyone who is environmentally conscious, this is a really good way to keep a lot of waste out of the landfill, while at the same time it is so helpful for the work we are doing to help people and show love to people,” she said.

“We run on Winnipeggers’ generosity.”

For more information or ways to help 1JustCity, visit its website at 1justcity.ca, or email Whitecloud at info@1justcity.ca.