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St. Petersburg police volunteer turns old shopping bags into sleeping mats for the homeless

 
Volunteer Road Patrol member Karen Hansford, 66, uses plastic grocery bags to make mats for the homeless. She uses about 1,000 plastic bags to crochet a 6'X4' sleeping mat. It takes her about a month to make one and they are surprisingly lightweight, cushy, and weather resistant. Hansford poses in front of a mat and a ball of "plarn," plastic yard made from grocery bags. [
JOHN PENDYGRAFT  |  TIMES]
Volunteer Road Patrol member Karen Hansford, 66, uses plastic grocery bags to make mats for the homeless. She uses about 1,000 plastic bags to crochet a 6'X4' sleeping mat. It takes her about a month to make one and they are surprisingly lightweight, cushy, and weather resistant. Hansford poses in front of a mat and a ball of "plarn," plastic yard made from grocery bags. [ JOHN PENDYGRAFT | TIMES]
Published May 29, 2015

ST. PETERSBURG — Just about everyone in the police department's Volunteer Road Patrol knows not to throw away their plastic shopping bags.

Their colleague, Karen Hansford, needs them.

The bags make up Hansford's "plarn" — plastic yarn — which she uses to make thick sleeping mats for the homeless in St. Petersburg. She cuts the bags into strips, ties them together and joins the strings with a crochet hook. About 1,000 bags later, she has a 6-foot by 4-foot waterproof mat.

"I like helping people," Hansford said. "It's as easy as that."

Members of the Road Patrol assist police officers in noncriminal matters like handicapped parking enforcement and directing traffic. Hansford, 67, a retired medical administrator from Connecticut, joined in 2011 to avoid restlessness in her golden years.

Early on, she was downtown on patrol and saw people sleeping on the ground in Williams Park, a popular resting spot for the city's homeless.

"I saw these women and children just laying there with just a blanket over them," Hansford said.

Florida is pretty warm, she thought, but "what happens when it rains or we get a storm?"

About the same time she learned a friend was using "plarn" to make small tote bags. Hansford, whose mother taught her to crochet when she was 10 years old, figured she could do more.

Since that time, she's made four sleeping mats. The first three were variegated, the latest patterned. She alternated dark grey bags (Walmart) with white and red bags (assorted, but mostly from Bealls) and tan bags (Publix) to make a striped mat, which police Officer Dennis Kelly will hand out soon.

Kelly, a community service officer, said he does not have a particular recipient in mind yet, but Hansford asked that the mat go to a woman or family sleeping outside. "We do have families that live in the St. Petersburg area that are sleeping on old blankets, cardboard," Kelly said.

Hansford said a friend's husband distributed her first three mats and she's not sure what became of them. She's not especially concerned about where they end up.

"It's just giving it and knowing that somebody's dry tonight," she said.

Cliff Smith, the city's manager of veteran, social and homeless services, said local shelters have spare beds but some people "want the freedom of being outdoors" and stay on the street. He had not heard of Hansford's efforts but called them sweet and kind.

"I would like to talk to her about maybe having them make the mats for people who come inside the shelter," Smith said. People roll them out inside, too, he said, and city officials could always use more.

Crocheting keeps Hansford busy and allows her to continue giving in retirement. She said she has volunteered all her life, including several years with the Boy Scouts of America. Recycling thousands of plastic bags, which would otherwise be bound for a landfill, is another benefit.

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"Plarn" is not difficult to use, Hansford said, though she often stitches a little too tightly and the first couple of rows "are a real bugger to do." It takes her about a month to make a sleeping mat once she has collected all the bags.

"I have a tendency to be a little hyper, so this 'vegges' me out," Hansford said.

The mats are her winter project because it can get hot crocheting with all that "plarn" on her lap. In the summer, she said, she makes small, glittery hats for cancer patients.

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8804. Follow @ZackSampson.