Love & Laundry.....a Mission Spotlight
Love and Laundry is a ministry that was started well over 5 years ago by a group of folks from St. Matthias who were looking for a way to bless others in the community. We had heard of another church doing a laundry ministry, and we decided we could start our own.
The idea was to pay for peoples' laundry for a few hours one afternoon a month and thereby share our abundant blessings with others in a very concrete way. We all knew that having to go to the laundromat is often a stressful time for folks, and it has gotten very expensive to do a family's weekly laundry that way.
We shared the idea with the congregation at St. Matthias, and they responded with great enthusiasm and with a flood of donations!! We placed an empty detergent jug outside the sanctuary and opened a budget line for folks wanting to contribute that way. Not only was the congregation's initial response amazing, but it has also continued to be an outpouring of contributions to this day!
We would greet folks coming into the local laundromat, tell them we were paying for their laundry that day, and watch the disbelief turn into tears or smiles or outright joy at the huge blessing that monetary gift was for them. We eventually settled into offering one roll of quarters ($10) per patron; an amount we can “adjust” if a family's size or “story” seems to indicate a greater need. We have our St. Matthias label on each roll of quarters, and we also give each patron a flyer with church information on it: service times, contact information, days and hours for our food pantry as well as upcoming special events, and there have been connections made with Micah Ministries, clothing drives and resources, and even a bail bondsman one afternoon! We've been able to give out free Bibles as well as a variety of faith-based brochures and tracts. A stack of coloring books, crayons, Play-Doh, and lollipops helps families cope with restless little ones!
The most moving aspect of Love and Laundry is the chance we get to pray with folks who carry some heavy burdens along with their laundry. We always ask if folks have any prayer needs; they often answer affirmatively, and we pray right on the spot if they're comfortable with that, or we add their names to our ongoing prayer list. So many of the patrons are “regulars,” and we've come to know and love them. At the end of an afternoon, we know we have been blessed even more than the recipients of our quarters!
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