POLK COUNTY, Fla. — A Winter Haven woman and her church are helping to fill a need through the Laundry Love ministry.
Along with Holy Cross Episcopal Church, deacon Julie Butcher helps people in need pay to do their laundry.
Butcher said she was involved in a similar ministry at her church in Massachusetts and wanted to continue to tradition when she moved to Polk County.
She asked Holy Cross to start a Laundry Love ministry and they happily agreed.
“If you are going to do laundry, I want to pay for your laundry. It’s free laundry day,” Butcher told a customer at Wash World recently, as she held a plastic container filled with quarters.
“We’re here on the first Monday of every month from 10 (a.m.) to 1 (p.m.),” she told another customer.
Church members donate the funds used to pay for the laundry.
Butcher said some people are having to make a choice between eating and clean clothes.
“It’s just really important to me to have our parish reach out into the community and meet a need,” she said.
Nancie Antoine was one of the Wash World customers who didn’t have to pay a thing.
“I was shocked. It’s a very good thing,” she said. “That’s a blessed. You don’t get that very often.”
Butcher seemed to be just as happy as the customers getting free laundry.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Joyful, blessed. Just to be able to bless somebody else is a blessing for me.”
Butcher’s husband and the Rev. Deke Miller were also at the laundromat to help.
“We also pray with people,” Miller said. “We’ll ask, ‘Can I pray for you?’ Most people say yes, and we pray.”
Rick Elmhorst
Source link
