Healthy Indoors Magazine
Issue link: https://hi.healthyindoors.com/i/1159916
24 | August 2019 Byline By Tom Murray make coats out of scrap material and then deliver them to homeless women in and around Detroit. But this was no ordinary coat and the scrap that she used to make them came from no ordinary source. You see, this coat converts in seconds to a sleeping bag and much of the scrap that she used to insulate them was scrap material donated by the General Motors Corporation. John Bradburn, who at the time was the Global Waste Reduction Manager for General Motors helped make Veronika's dream a reality by donated to Veronika and her associates, some 2,000 yards of scrap sound-deadening material used inside the doors and dash- boards of the Chevrolet Malibu and Buick Verano. This was enough material to make 400 coats. The homeless women were very excited to receive their coats, but they were also motivated by Veronika's kindness. Their rallying cry quickly switched from "yes, we need coats!" to "but we also need jobs!" Veronika heard their cry and today these coasts are being stitched together in Veronika's factory by the very I don't know about you, but when I watch the night- ly news, I look forward to the last news item of the broadcast. You know the one. It is usually a heart- warming story of how one individual is reaching out to another, oftentimes in the most inventive way imag- inable. Well, I didn't hear about this story from my nightly news but it does fall into the same category. Normally, I would have just tucked this story away to share with my kids and grandkids when egos needed adjusting, but this one has an interesting sustainability twist to it and I thought it worth sharing in this space. This story comes out of Detroit, Michigan and is about a young lady who is literally stitching together new hope and dreams for the homeless. Her name is Veronika Scott. Veronika, who when I first met her, was 23 years old, had a radical idea and she is now acting on that idea to the delight of many in the city of Detroit and beyond. Her idea was to Veronika Scott and Her Amazing Dream Coat