Every year, Warren Township High School’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter creates a Community Service Committee to serve surrounding areas with a new project. This year, Lucia Rodriguez and Krista Zimmer were appointed its leaders and began their brainstorming process in July. Upon the discovery of an idea that turns recycled plastic shopping bags into mats, the two leads found their project’s baseline for the year. After research, the committee decided to create these mats and donate them to homeless shelters in their community.

Starting in August, the leads, Lucia and Krista, contacted a variety of local businesses in the Lake County area to obtain recycled plastic bags. Seven businesses allowed members to frequently pick up the recycled bags for use in their project. The committee also gained support from the Gurnee Park District and Walgreens by allowing them to place boxes within their locations, so customers conveniently could contribute to this cause.

From August to the present, there have been over 65 Warren FBLA members and four advisers assisting in the execution of this project. To begin with, the members started by decorating boxes and creating flyers to distribute to local businesses. Next, members gathered many recycled bags and sorted through the items. Any items or other plastic bags that were not usable for the mats were recycled. Currently, the group has created an assembly line to make the plastic yarn, known as plarn. Warren students are welcome to join our efforts by attending our workdays on Tuesday’s February 25th, March 10th, and March 17th from 6 to 7pm in room 117 at the Almond campus