Residents At OKC Senior Living Facility Weave Mats For Homeless

Some metro seniors are staying active with a purpose. For an hour a week, residents at Embark at Statesman Club crochet shopping bags. It's tough work and takes an assembly line of close to a dozen workers to complete the mats. Residents crotchet, fold, c

Thursday, October 24th 2019, 5:35 pm

By: Karl Torp

Residents At OKC Senior Living Facility Weave Mats For Homeless

Some metro seniors are staying active with a purpose. For an hour a week, residents at Embark at Statesman Club crochet shopping bags.

It's tough work and takes an assembly line of close to a dozen workers to complete the mats. Residents crotchet, fold, cut and tie the plastic bags and turn them in a spool.

One of the volunteers is 102 years old.

The bags are donated from grocery stores. It takes 600 to 700 plastic grocery bags just to complete one mat.

The mats are then handed out to local homeless people, to give them something they can sleep on at night.

“It feels like you are still contributing to society,” said Embark resident Barbara Koerner.

“They are excited they are still able to do something worthwhile,” said Jacki Sushud, who started the bag knitting program at Embark at Statesman Club two and half years ago.

Sushud got the idea from a local church and hopes the work can serve as an inspiration to others her age.

“We are going to do it until we are not able to,” said Sashud.

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