Leftover masking materials turned into blankets for homeless people and pets

A Sarnia-area company has found a way to put leftover pandemic materials to community use.

Great Pretenders, a children's dress-up costume manufacturer in Point Edward, Ont., is manufacturing blankets for homeless people and pets.

The idea stems from another switch to help at the start of the pandemic. In mid-2020, Great Pretenders started producing cloth masks.

“We ended up with a lot of people sewing. Probably 30. There were a lot of people in here sewing masks,” said Julie Donald, a product development supervisor.

But after producing over 100,000 masks, the company stopped production as health authorities recommended medical masking — that left them with 20,000 pre-cut pieces of fabric.

Then last month, Donald says a group of employees brainstormed to determine what they could do with the leftover fabric.

“We decided to start making these blankets,” she said.

Using the squares originally cut for the masks, a full-time employee sews the patches together to form a quilt-style blanket.

The employee's time is donated by the company through September. It is hoped at least 150 blankets will be complete by then.

Pauline Scouler is seen using leftover fabric from face masks to make blankets for homeless people and pets, July 11, 2022. (Sean Irvine/CTV News London)“It takes about three hours to complete one quilt,” MacDonald said.

Fellow employee Chelsea Zago has been helping package and deliver the finished blankets.

She has also visited some of the clients of the River City Vineyard shelter in Sarnia. It was there, one man inspired here to keep going.

“He said until you’re in this position, a homeless position, you really don’t understand the gravity of the situation. I think that’s really important, because anyone of us could be in that position,” Zago recalled.

And for that reason, the group will keep working to help those in need — including the animals.

The group is making smaller blankets for homeless pets at the local humane society. They are also selling them for a $10 donation at Dog Eat Dog gifts in Sarnia.

Zago hopes the efforts inspire more companies to ‘sew’ together ways to recycle pandemic, or other types of manufacturing waste.

“Whether you’re in the textile industry or food industry, no matter what, you have waste. So, it’s just taking that extra time and looking at whatever you have and asking, ‘Can this serve someone else?’”