Laundry Love Initiative: Christmas Gift

I asked my friend Charles Lee if I could reprint his blog post about Laundry Love, and his affirmative response is the explanation of what is below. I just wanted to share my two cents on this as well.

Do you like smelly people? Do you like homeless smelly people? Probably not. You want to get away from them as quickly as you can, as the saying goes, "smell ya later." If you think about it, yes homeless people can go to homeless shelters where they may be able to take a shower. But where can they go to do their laundry free of charge? I'm sure you don't like wearing dirty clothes. When my kids throw up on me, the first thing I want to do is change my clothes. Think about how you would feel about yourself if you had to go around smelling like that without a way to do something about it. Helping that homeless person feel confident by not having to worry about turning off people by his smell can make the difference of whether that person eventually stops being homeless.

Another story of a family that was greatly helped by Laundry Love was that of a family whose primary breadwinner lost his job. While he was searching for work, some weeks it was pay for food for a day or pay for laundry. If you haven't been to a laundromat lately, it can be pretty pricey. I was shocked when our washer broke and I had to go to the laundromat to do laundry. It was $3 for one load! (Drying was less but since our dryer wasn't broken, I don't remember exactly how much.) A family of five can easily pay $12-20 to do 4 loads of laundry. So if you have any capacity in this holiday season to give to a worthy cause that is easily overlooked, please consider donating to Laundry Love. You will really be helping Laundry Love become a force to help those who need it desperately.

Here is the text of Charles' post below (references to I = references to Charles):
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A few years ago, a good friend of mine (Greg Russinger) and I launched a new organization called JustOne. It was designed to be an idea-generating organization for initiatives that would spark tangible acts of human care. One of these initiatives is called Laundry Love.

Laundry Love (LL) is an initiative of JustOne in partnership with individuals, groups and local laundromats throughout the U.S. The LL initiative helps to wash the clothes and bedding of individuals and/or families living in poverty. From the infant to the aged, and across a broad spectrum of ethnicity, culture and personal story, LL seeks to nurture the health, hygiene, economic, and relational well being of each person through intentional networking and friendship.

This Christmas season we are launching our 1st ever financial campaign for Laundry Love nationally. With the growing number of Laundry Love efforts to help resource (over 130 currently) with tools and support, we are in need of updating and expanding our web platforms so more and more people living in poverty can find a local Laundry Love effort closest to them.

We will do this by updating our mapping option on the just4one.org website, but also designing and launching laundrylove.org, a national website strictly focusing on the laundry love efforts throughout the U.S. Also, we hope to add a “laundry love app” for mobile devices in 2013.

We know that you have many charitable options this Christmas Season, we do hope you would consider partnering with Laundry Love, allowing more people to have access to clean clothes. It’s amazing to see how this simple act of providing resources for clean clothes can change the outlook, demeanor, and sense of self-dignity in the lives those who benefit from our efforts.

We hope to reach $5,000 by Christmas morning, please join us in supporting Laundry Love by clicking here.
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