MCC Material Resource Center

Last night our orientation group piled onto a school bus to visit MCC's Material Resource Center.

Somebody's legs were too long for the child-sized seats.

I expected to see lots of canned food, handmade quilts and comforters and a warehouse filled with other goods to be sent out across the world through MCC's Relief programs. We definitely saw all of those things, and a lot more! I learned quite a bit from the gentleman giving us the tour.

For instance, did you know that the average American discards approximately 65 pounds of used clothing EVERY YEAR? Some of it goes to thrift stores, but some of it winds up in the landfill. MCC attempts to "rescue" some of that clothing and turn it into products they can sell. The money they make then goes towards their program and staff costs.

There were five looms set up in the warehouse where people are weaving strips of old jeans and corduroy pants into rugs.  I was impressed, to say the least.

Additionally, MCC collects handmade quilts and comforters from women all across the U.S. (though most come from the Amish women of Lancaster County) and sends them to families in disaster situations. For instance, after the earthquake in Haiti MCC sent more than 26,000 handmade blankets like these ones.

These white bundles are packed with such blankets - somewhere between 15-20 blankets per bundle.  There were pallets of blankets scattered all over the warehouse.

I was totally floored by the number of work hours, yards of thread and pricked fingers all those blankets represent. There was a whole room set up for quilting, where at least six huge quilts were spread across looms to be hand-stitched.

These quilts are being made to sell at MCC Relief Sales across the U.S.

If you are a quilter or sewer and would like to know how to contribute your skills and passions to providing blankets for disaster victims, read more here.

We also learned about MCC's meat canning process, recycling program (old books, brand-new-but-defected dialysis filters, newspaper, etc...) and other kits that they send to disaster areas (newborn kits, sewing kits, school kits and health kits). It was all super fascinating and I took many more pictures, but I'll leave it at this for now.

Ryan and I are excited for the upcoming weekend of rest. Tomorrow we celebrate our 2 year anniversary and Sunday we get to see a friend from DC!