Daughter's future in the bag

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- George Vargas' hands seem like they're always in motion. Folding. Flipping. Smoothing. Sewing.

He works quickly and with the precision of a tailor, weaving bags bearing famous names in snack food -- Doritos, Fritos, Ruffles, Funyuns -- into designer handbags that sell for as much as $200.

It's a skill he learned in prison, something he never thought could change his life 15 years later.

But today Vargas is using the popular prison craft to establish a trust fund for his 6-year-old daughter, Yolanda, and support substance abuse prevention programs in Springfield.

When Vargas learned from a fellow inmate how to make picture frames by folding cigarette packages into chains of rectangles that could be threaded together, he did it to pass the time of his 60-day sentence for heroin possession.

Still struggling with his drug addiction when he left prison in 1989, Vargas became more interested in the form of Mexican paper weaving and began using snack bags to make handbags.

Supporting a drug habitBy cutting the bags into rectangular strips, he figured out how to fold and hook them together in a way that created dizzying patterns out of bar codes. Puffy, cloud-like designs emerged from the popcorn pictures on Smartfood bags. The racy look of Cheetos packages were bent into bright blazes of orange and yellow.

His early customers were passers-by -- anybody who would give him $10 or $15 for a bag, just enough to keep supporting his heroin habit but not enough to make up for the 15 hours it takes him to make a single handbag.

Another drug conviction in 2001 landed him back in jail. A few days after his release, his wife -- plagued by her own drug habit -- had a heart attack and died.

Left to care for Yolanda, the couple's young daughter, Vargas decided to quit drugs.

"I did it for her," he said. "I needed to take care of her."

Unable to work full time because of clinical depression and a struggle to stay sober, Vargas, now 53, began collecting supplemental security income and started volunteering at a drop-in clinic for drug addicts. A woman he volunteered with showed a bag to a friend, Katie Stebbins, and Vargas' fortunes began to change.

"I immediately loved the idea of the bags," said Stebbins, a 33-year-old Springfield city planner. "And everybody wants to know about them. I can't walk five feet without someone stopping me to look at my bag."

The two built a friendship, and Stebbins encouraged Vargas to go from recovering drug addict to aspiring artist. The bags, she figured, could sell for at least $100.

But Vargas didn't want the money for himself. He was thinking of Yolanda, and the opportunities he missed with his three other children from a first marriage that crumbled.

Helping addicts"I never gave anything to my first three kids," Vargas said. "I don't want to be that way with Yolanda. I want to make sure she has something. I want her to go to college."

Stebbins helped him establish a trust fund for Yolanda about a year ago, making sure that $50 from each handbag sale goes into the account. The remainder is used to establish a not-for-profit agency that will help addicts stay off drugs and provide services for their families.

In the year that Stebbins and Vargas have been collaborating, 74 bags have been sold.

Stebbins serves as executor of the trust fund, and none of the money goes to Vargas. He still collects government disability payments and spends most of his time -- at least seven hours a day, seven days a week -- making handbags. They're now selling for $150 to $200 at a downtown bookstore and gift shops at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.

"People come in the store, look at the bags and think they're wonderful," said Janet Edwards, the owner of Edwards Books who has sold 30 bags since June and has taken orders for seven more. "When they see the price, that becomes the point when they take them seriously. And when they hear George's story and find out where the money goes, they're amazed."

Vargas isn't sure where his handbag enterprise is going. He just wants to make sure his daughter has a secure future and other struggling addicts can get the help they need.

"I'm going to keep doing this until my hands give up," he said.