New skills for canine comfort
None of them had ever sewn before, but everyone agreed last week that Community Corrections had gone a great job of producing a consignment of dog beds.
The project was a spin-off from Hospice inviting community work clients to turn five tonnes of used clothing into recyclable bags for stores throughout Northland. The bags were made from shirts of every shape and size, once the sleeves had been removed.
In five months community service workers made 3500 bags, all of which made their way to Hospice, but that left a substantial quantity of bits and pieces that would have found their way to the dump had Donna Blake and colleagues not come up with the idea using them as stuffing for dog beds.
Atomic Coffee Roasters in Auckland had no hesitation in donating a hundred sacks, and as of last week 60 coffee bag dog beds and 40 of the potato sack variety had been given to the Bay of Islands SPCA. (The potato sacks were donated by Great Northern Traders, in Kerikeri). Sacking needles were also donated.
“The next step was to make the dog beds theirs by putting a design on them, so we came up three heart-shaped paws, which are on the corner of each sack,” Ms Blake said.
“Sometimes they get a bit more creative with the potato sacks and add a few bones and a few more paws, because the sacks come to us blank, and are a bigger canvas.
“So we saved eight tonnes of waste clothing going into land fill. Instead it has gone back out to the community to be reused,” she added.
“Sleeves and bits go into the dog beds, T-shirts/tops are made into recyclable bags, buttons and zips are donated to a local seamstress.”
Hospice had now run out of bags, but the focus was on making dog beds and delivering them to the SPCA before Christmas, before starting on the next lot of reusable bags.