The Blackpool nurse who is making sleeping bags for the resort's homeless out of crisp packets!

A Blackpool nurse is ensuring vulnerable people get a warm place to spend the night by making sleeping bags out of used crisp packets.
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Sam Dawes, 37, of Whitegate Drive, is spending her free time recycling hundreds of crisp packets and turning them into insulated covers for homeless and vulnerable people.

Sam, based at Blackpool’s The Harbour mental health hospital has converted her spare room into a mini factory to turn the bags of rubbish into sleeping bags after being inspired by a video she saw on YouTube.

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The finished products will be given to a resort charity to be handed out.

Sam Dawes with some of the crisp packets that will be used to make sleeping bags for vulnerable people in BlackpoolSam Dawes with some of the crisp packets that will be used to make sleeping bags for vulnerable people in Blackpool
Sam Dawes with some of the crisp packets that will be used to make sleeping bags for vulnerable people in Blackpool

The bags are 6.5ft in length, and are designed as a waterproof, insulated cover to go around regular blankets and bedding, ensuring a warm, dry night for those using them.

Mother-of-two Sam ran a crochet group for staff making sleeping mats until Covid-19 restrictions called meetings to a halt.

Keen to do something from home, she found an online video that showed crisp bags being recycled and she has now finished three sleeping bags and wants to continue making them with one of the trust’s social groups after lockdown.

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She said: “It’s quite a long process at the moment, with each one taking about five hours, but it’s given me something to do during lockdown when I’m not at work. It’s difficult to think about people, and maybe children, being cold and you’d hope that everyone would have a bed to go to where they can be warm, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.

“We already do collections for food banks in the area so we’ll be speaking to the charity to see how we can distribute these sleeping bags and continue to help in the future.”

The individual packets are opened up before being hand washed and then undergoing a second clean in her washing machine. They are then hung out to dry on a line before beginning the process of matching them up in size order.

About 150 packets for each sleeping bag are then ironed together in rows and then larger rectangles before an extra plastic layer, from unwanted mattress wrapping, is ironed over to make them extra watertight.

Anyone who can donate crisp packets should send them to The Harbour FAO RGN Sam Dawes, Windmill Rise, off Preston New Road, Blackpool, FY4 4FE.