Wow! What a great time with this month’s Laundry Love Project.
We had a great time washing more than 30 loads of laundry (double last month’s numbers) and helping more than 15 different families.
We’re quickly finding out that communication and language barriers may be our biggest hurdle to overcome. Yet they bring such joy once they’re overcome.
After showing up unannounced to our first Laundry Love Project, we hoped to get permission from the laundromat owners this time around so we could post some flyers letting people know about the upcoming event. Sadly, the owners of the laundromat actually told us (via another person) that they weren’t interested in us having our monthly Laundry Love Project event at their business.
Feeling that they weren’t fully understanding what we wanted to do (hence the communication barrier), we decided to push on through slightly different means.
We encouraged our volunteers to bring at least one load of their own laundry to wash this month while participating in the Laundry Love Project. We showed up unannounced (again) and simply did “nice things” while we were doing our own laundry.
After we arrived, I had the opportunity to get to know a single father who was there with his two daughters. He recognized us immediately from our May event.
He was finishing his laundry as we arrived (same as last month), but as his loads finished in the dryer, we had the chance to talk about some of his passions (pro-wrestling), his job, his fiance living in St Louis and his beautiful girls.
His girls were full of energy (like most 6 and 8 year olds) and were skipping and running around the laundromat with another girl their age. Yet they quickly turned shy when I tried to talk with them and get their names.
However, after giving each of the girls a new canvas book bag and t-shirt (generously donated by the DCCCD African American Read-In) they were glad to open up and talk about their favorite books and toys.
It just amazes me how little comments, or gifts can open a person up to sharing their life stories.
Last month it was asking a kid about his wrestling action figurine and someone asking another person about their University of Arkansas cap. This month it was telling someone I liked their WWE wrestling t-shirt and then later giving his daughters a new canvas book bag.
We’re trained to assume that everyone wants something from us and we tend to be very standoff-ish because of it. Yet, once that initial trust is made, it can go a long way.
And I think that’s one reason why I love Laundry Love Projects. It’s such a simple way to show you care about someone — with no strings attached.
Everyone expects there to be some kind of gimmick or hoop they’ll need to jump through to accept your quarters, but when they realize there isn’t — the artificial walls we’ve built up begin to crumble.
It’s such a great tangible image of what real love is — no strings attached. No expectations. No demands. Just giving of yourself for another person.
If your interest has been peaked at all, we’d love to have you come and experience the joy in sharing this kind of love for yourselves. Our next event is planned for July 25th. You can visit redoakllp.wordpress.com or follow @rollp on Twitter for more info. If attending our next event isn’t possible, you can also find other ways to get involved on our donation page.
