Textile students at McMath secondary handmade and donated a total of 55 reusable shopping bags to the Richmond Food Bank this month.
McMath secondary’s home economics teacher Akiko Kato said her class decided to use Richmond’s old street banners – donated by the City of Richmond – to make the reusable bags.
“My first lesson plan was a recycling project,” said Kato.
“But I heard about the Food Bank needing (reusable bags) so I changed the lesson plan and talked to the students about it.”
The whole class, she said, chose to make the shopping bags instead of garments because they believed it would be more helpful for others.
According to Hajira Hussain, executive director at the Richmond Food Bank Society, more than 1,500 produce and non-perishable grocery hampers have been packed every week since the pandemic began.
“We did put a call out for plastic shopping bags on our social media pages and a few schools have picked that up and have been supporting us with donations of plastic bags,” said Hussain, adding that McMath is one of several schools.
“Many local businesses as well as our volunteers have been very generous and have supported us with large quantities of shopping bags.”
