Homelessness Week 2017

What a week!!

It started last week when I heard about the launch for Homelessness Week at Lilydale Lake Community Centre.  It was advertised on the Yarra Ranges Life TV Facebook Page.

I'd been following Yarra Ranges Life TV's Facebook page after they did a special on Animal Aid up at Coldstream.

They were streaming the coverage of the launch live from Lilydale Lake Community Centre.

For the last fifteen months I've been making sleeping mats out of plastic bags.  I first found out about the mats on a local noticeboard where they were looking for helpers to make the mats.

I started going along to workshops being held in Frankston and started crocheting my first mat.  The first couple of mats were crocheted but then I found out it was a lot quicker to use a weaving loom.
Thank you Sam from West Victoria Homeless Support Group for gifting me a loom and the second two I also purchased for other groups to use.  One loom is on loan to a group of students at Tintern Grammar.

At the beginning of the week I had three mats along with pillows to hand over to people on the streets and I was looking for a group to give them to.

I took one of them along on Monday to the launch and met Councillor Tim Heenan who was sleeping rough in a cardboard box near Melba Park in Lilydale at the David Parkinson Pavillion.

Tim has been using one of the mats in his cardboard box and has provided valuable feedback regarding how they help him get a better nights sleep and at the end of the sleep out he will then pass the mat on to someone else who needs it.

Neal Taylor from Holy Fools was also at the launch and he has said that any mats I make after this week will be gratefully accepted and handed out to those who need them most.

I've met some wonderful people this week who are part of great groups that are helping people the most.  Holy Fools runs a lunch on a Wednesday at 12 o'clock and I'll be going down there to visit them to see their awesome work in action.

Thank you Tim, Neal, Phil and Pat who I've met this week along with the people on the streets themselves.  Looking forward to getting more mats out there and hopefully finding more local groups to help make more of them

If you have a group of people that would like to start making mats please contact me for further details via my Facebook page