- By Youth Project NZ
As part of their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award, pupils at Botany Downs Secondary College are working with Youth Project NZ, volunteering for an hour a week after school.
During this time they’ve supported different charities and community groups, including litter pick-ups, baking for Bellyful East Auckland and making toys for the animals at the SPCA.
The students decided they wanted to help vulnerable people in New Zealand, people who don’t have a house, that live on the streets, or in cars and garages and the Chip Packet Project is a great way to do that.
They had the idea to make empty chip packets into survival blankets.
We’re aiming to make as many survival blankets as possible for people in need out of empty chip packets.
There are at least 8000 people in Auckland that would benefit from a chip packet blanket, enabling them to have a warm night’s sleep.
Each blanket needs 55 family-size chip packets and takes about four hours to make from start to finish.
Once we have made the blankets the volunteers at the Chip Packet Project will cover them with a plastic wrap to make them waterproof.
The foil of the chip packets helps to trap body heat which enables people to stay warm.
The students are planning to write kindness messages on the foil blankets.
It takes up to 80 years for a chip packet to decompose in a landfill, so by making these blankets we’re helping people to stay warm and the environment by reducing waste going to landfill.
This project has the whole community involved, so far Cascades Kindergarten has collected packets, and local businesses such as Dalton Electrical have donated some.
Pupils at Botany Downs Secondary College went to speak at Howick Primary School as they are also keen to be involved and add to our collection.
We have a collection box for the community inside Botany Town Centre Library. We’d be very grateful for any donations of family sized chip packets.
For more information please contact our project manager Claire at claire@youthprojectnz.org.
