A grassroots effort of local volunteers is cutting and crocheting plastic bags into mats for the homeless. It’s a triple mitzvah – serving the homeless, reusing plastic bags to benefit the environment, and bringing together different groups in the Jewish community. 
The mats are called “Mercy Mats” and are made of crocheted plastic grocery bags. They offer warmth and are less apt to get muddled with water and mold for people who are unhoused and need a portable mattress. In recent months, people from the Jewish community visited the West Allis Public Library for training on how to make Mercy Mats. A club there has been making them for years, with Repairers of the Breach in Milwaukee repeatedly asking for more, for use in shelters and on the street.
The Jewish community has already delivered some mats to the library-based club – Mercy Mats of West Allis, led by Donna Reimesch and Carol Eastman – for a final quality check before they are delivered to Repairers of the Breach.
Typically, the Jewish community group meets every other Sunday at Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid in Glendale. Everyone in the community is welcome and the CBINT meetings attract people from other shuls, with others working from home.
“We have at least two congregations, Beth Israel and ASKT,” said Dan Weber, a key organizer.“But we also have people at Sinai, Menorah, Shalom, and Emanuel who are interested in also being a part of this.”
Marlene Loeb and Sarah Packman worked on creating mats for those without homes, on May 3 at Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid. Loeb, at left, missed a stitch and saw that her mat was starting to sag wrong. “I’m ripping,” she said. She was pulling it apart to do it over.
Robin Benedon, a member of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah, was helping make mats at CBINT on May 3, at one of the twice monthly meetings. She says she can’t crochet, so it’s her role to pull the bags together after they are cut. In other words, you don’t need to know how to crochet to help. There are cutters and folders and other roles, too!
“This could potentially be something for everybody within the North Shore area,” Dan Weber said. “We’ll also tell people that for whatever reason, if they want to do it on their own, that’s okay too, As the Torah says, the poor will never cease out of the land.”
Benedon and Marcie Brenner first helped connect Dan and Shelley (“Budney”) Weber with Mercy Mats of West Allis in the winter, and the project has spread in the Jewish community from there. “I told the Webers about it and they just ran with it,” Benedon said. The Webers are members of both ASKT and CBINT.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing that they’re doing,” said Rachel Rudmin, another Jewish community volunteer.
Debbie Alpert sat at one of the circular wood tables at CBINT, folding bags and cutting them into strips, for later use in crocheting, at the May 3 gathering. “We’re putting them by color into these different bins,” she said, grabbing bins and naming the colors.
CBINT member Sarah Packman was at a different table, tying strips together to make the “plarn” – balls of plastic yarn. She has fished bags out of the recycling bin at the grocery store, but also likes coming to CBINT for the comradery and more recycled bags. “It takes hundreds of bags to make one mat,” she said.
“I’m really upset about what’s happening in our country politically,” said Anita Bensman, a CBINT member who crochets, cuts, folds, does it all.
“I’m just one person. I can do this,” she said, lifting up her crocheted mat ever so slightly. “It helps relieve my feelings of helplessness.”
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