At 85, Jennifer Coor still walks fast, talks fast and thinks fast. That is, unless she is in a grocery store parking lot where she will linger to return shopping carts, not just her own, to ease the workload of the employees.

She also slows down while driving to give other cars the right of way, not wanting to see them stuck adrift in traffic.

“I like to do two or three good deeds a day,” she said. “I always have.”

On Friday her good deeds for the day included bringing over 40 handmade bags to the Chicken Alley Thrift Shop in Vineyard Haven. All the bags are made of old material — odds and ends from couch slipcovers, discarded curtains, bedspreads or fabric samples. In a little over two years, Ms. Coor has sewn more than 500 bags for the thrift shop, which raises money for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.

The bags are used to carry purchases, a creative and recyclable alternative to plastic bags.

Bags are sewn together using discarded materials from slipcovers, bedspreads, clothing.

Melissa Knowles

Bags are sewn together using discarded materials from slipcovers, bedspreads, clothing.

Melissa Knowles

“I saw a photo in the Gazette,” Ms. Coor said of the inspiration for the bags. “There was a gull with a plastic bag around its neck and I wanted to do something to help.”

At the time she was cleaning out her closets and had found a stockpile of old clothes and extra slipcover material from several chairs. She set to work with her Singer sewing machine, turning the ephemera of her closet into handmade bags of many colors and patterns. When she ran out of her own fabric, the thrift shop began setting aside material for her.

Friday’s batch included several bags with floral patterns, one with buoys, another with snowmen. Some of the lighter fabric bags were held back for a summer delivery and one with a Union Jack would be a gift to her daughter. Ms. Coor grew up in England where the seeds of her current hobby were sown.

“I started knitting during the war,” she explained. “We all learned how to knit, to create things for the soldiers. I was only four but I knit socks.”

Knitting eventually led to learning how to sew, but more importantly the experience of helping out during the war effort instilled in her a duty to help others.

Ms. Coor and her husband moved to the U.S. in 1960. He was a doctor, she was a nurse, and the young couple intended to stay in Cambridge for only a year. But they enjoyed the year so much, which included a trip to the Vineyard, they never left Boston. They also purchased two acres in Chilmark in the early 1960s for $7,000. Ms. Coor has been a seasonal resident ever since.

On Friday Ms. Coor delivered over 40 bags to the thrift shop.

Melissa Knowles

On Friday Ms. Coor delivered over 40 bags to the thrift shop.

Melissa Knowles

On the Vineyard she likes to garden. “I grow everything and so have no time for the beach,” she said.

When pressed, she adds another hobby to the list. “I pick up garbage, that’s what I do.”

She does this wherever she goes, doing her part to keep the streets a bit tidier. “The worst are things like squished grapes when you don’t have a Kleenex to pick them up. But training myself to look down for garbage has come in handy, now that I’m older, so that I don’t trip.”

Upon arriving at Chicken Alley on Friday afternoon, her arms loaded down with an overflowing stack of her bags, Ms. Coor announced to the room: “The bag lady cometh.”

She is greeted with cheers by the staff, many of them volunteers, and Jessica Tartell, manager of the thrift shop. The place is packed with shoppers and one wonders if the holiday season has picked up the pace.

“We are always busy,” Ms. Tartell said. “We never slow down.”

Annually, the thrift shop raises more than $500,000 for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.

Ms. Tartell pointed to a box filled with donated scraps of cloth that the staff has saved for Ms. Coors.

“We get so much material it is good to be able to keep things out of the landfill,” Ms. Tartell said. “Part of the ethos of this place is using things again.”

The two women caught up on news that has occurred since the last bag drop. Then Ms. Coor noticed some more fabric samples on a shelf. She walked over, stopping once to pick up an errant piece of thread on the floor, then began to look through the bin.

“Oh my,” she said with a smile. “I may have to stay awhile.”