In the wake of damaged homes and power and water outages, clean clothes may seem like a small thing. But Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers whose ministry focus revolves around laundry beg to differ.
“After a good, hot shower, there’s nothing like having clean clothes to put on for the next day, especially when you’ve been working three or four days in the hot sun,” said Gary Green, shower and laundry unit coordinator for Alabama Baptist disaster relief.
“The feel and smell of clean clothes help your morale and you just rest better,” he said. “You are much more refreshed for work the next day when you are clean.”
As of May 4, at least 23 mobile shower and/or laundry units were in place around Alabama for use by tornado survivors and disaster relief volunteers. Facebook posts offered help for those in need as well. In Calhoun County, where several communities were hard hit, First Baptist Church, Williams, in Jacksonville, posted that First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, in Calhoun Baptist Association, and local businesses Salon Alon and Suds & Hugs had volunteered to help with laundry. In Athens, Clements Baptist Church in Limestone Baptist Association also offered shower and laundry facilities.
Mobile shower/laundry units are in place in Pleasant Grove, Vance, Moulton, Coker, Russellville, Hoover, Wellington, Ashville, Rainsville, Montgomery, Cottondale, Bessemer, Ider, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Henagar and Double Springs. The primary role of these facilities, according to Green, has been to provide laundry services for volunteers assisting in cleanup efforts, as well as for National Guard troops and Red Cross workers.
The laundry ministry is actually quite simple. Individuals put their dirty clothes into a bag and drop the bag at one of the mobile units. Volunteers then tag a “clean” bag with the individual’s name, and the clean bag follows the laundry through the process. Laundry volunteers wash, dry and fold the clothes, then put them in the tagged clean bag for pickup.
Generally two volunteers are assigned to each laundry trailer, which have two to four washers and dryers each. Green said two training sessions are now held annually at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center for laundry volunteers. A two-day training session in the spring covers the hitching and towing requirements for actually pulling a trailer, as well as delivery and setup/breakdown of a shower/laundry trailer. The spring session includes laundry and sanitation instructions as well.
This fall, a one-day class will be offered at Shocco covering the basics of handling and cleaning the laundry and cleaning and sanitizing the showers.
Alabama Baptist disaster relief currently owns two shower/laundry units, Green said, and several associations have their own, with a combined total of 14 units available throughout the state. The training is standard, Green said, so that everyone is prepared to staff a trailer regardless of its origin.
At press time, two dedicated laundry trailers were in operation. The first, a laundry unit from Texas Baptist disaster relief, was put into operation May 2 at North River Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, in Tuscaloosa Baptist Association. The second was en route May 4 to Harvest House Restaurant in Harvest in northwestern Madison County.
Butch Roshto, associate pastor of pastoral care at North River Baptist, said the laundry facilities were initially being used only by the volunteers from Texas who are headquartered at the church, including several chainsaw crews and a kitchen crew. However, once the church put out the word through a local radio station that the facility was available, more dirty laundry started coming in.
“We had a huge pile Tuesday night, and volunteers washed throughout the night,” Roshto said.
And, at press time, one person had been led to the Lord in front of the laundry trailer, he noted.
“The volunteers out here tell everyone that their goal is to help the displaced but also to share Christ, which is what they are doing,” Roshto said.
Tuscaloosa residents have been helped as well by the Tide Loads of Hope program, sponsored by Tide detergent and set up at University Mall. According to the company’s website, Tide’s mobile laundromat is capable of cleaning more than 300 loads of laundry every day. Volunteers at the site wash, dry and fold clothes for free.
In Harvest, a team from South Carolina is helping coordinate relief efforts, which include shower and laundry facilities from both South Carolina and Michigan. The team is headquartered at Mount Zion Baptist Church, Huntsville, in Madison Baptist Association, and coordinator David Carver of South Carolina disaster relief said the church has offered to do laundry for volunteers.
Bob Norris, also of South Carolina, is the coordinator for laundry for the South Carolina team, and he said that like other sites, the Harvest House shower and laundry units are being utilized primarily by Baptist volunteers and Red Cross workers.
“We’re happy to be here,” Norris said. “It’s a blessing to be able to help people.”
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