Clean Clothes and Caring Community
It’s Laundry Love day in Rio Communities, a small town on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Stepping inside, I’m not met with the monotony of a dreaded chore; instead, the small laundromat buzzes with laughter and conversation. It feels more like a block party than laundry day.
Four friendly women from the Belen Seventh-day Adventist Church—Peggy Duenas, Charlotte Tenorio, Betty Carpenter and Victoria Valladarez—move through the room, slipping quarters into machines filled with clothes, blankets and even stuffed toys. Today, they are paying for the patrons’ laundry.
“Guess what?” says a woman who goes by Sunshine. “I finally have a space at an RV park!” The women had been praying for Sunshine as she searched for a new place. Sunshine will later say those prayers were even more valuable than the fistfuls of quarters the women provide during their bi-monthly laundromat trips.
Nearby, Candy watches her clothes spin while her boxer-mix, Roxy, rests at her feet. Some of the money she’s saving by participating in the Laundry Love program will go to help feed Roxy and her other dogs. Candy and her husband, Rick, host a former hotel chef named José, whose career was derailed when he needed a kidney transplant. José is eager to return to the career he loves, but in the meantime, Laundry Love helps him stay ready. “We are very thankful for Laundry Love,” says José.
At the front of the laundromat sits a young woman. “I’m tired,” she says, “and five months pregnant.” Duenas, overhearing this, scoots closer to her. Soon, several women gather around. This is the first time they have met this newcomer, but they have already been planning a baby shower for her since they learned from a family member that she would be moving to town.
Watching these laundromat interactions, one feels a step closer to heaven. The sense of unity here is overwhelming.
But the scenes I’ve just witnessed might not have happened had Duenas’s daughter not turned her down for a dinner invitation because of her commitment to a Laundry Love program in Albuquerque.
Intrigued by her daughter’s description of the national non-profit program that helps people pay for their laundry to be washed at laundromats throughout the United States, Duenas decided this was something she had to see for herself. Visiting the Laundry Love event her daughter worked with, Duenas overheard one of the patrons tearfully commenting, “I had a washing machine. I had a house. But I don’t anymore.” Then, with gratitude for the volunteers paying for her laundry, she added, “Now I’m going to have clean clothes!” Duenas knew this was a ministry she had to be part of.
Today, the entire Belen church has fully embraced Laundry Love, raising quarters, giving offerings and gathering twice a month to share quarters at local laundromats. With the cost of washing and drying laundry averaging at $6.50 a load, the church spends approximately $400 a month on the Laundry Love ministry. “Our church is such a small church,” said Duenas of the 100-member congregation, “but I think that we’re blessed because we bless others.”
The depth of Duenas’s words becomes evident at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning when walking into what was once a bar, now transformed into a place of worship. The place is nearly full. When the request is made for those who will be baptized that afternoon to come forward, about a quarter of those in attendance join the visiting evangelist on the stage. That afternoon, 21 baptisms will be celebrated. The church community’s vibrancy is undeniable.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” the Laundry Love ladies share. Weaving through a crowded fellowship hall the size of a large living room, it’s difficult to look for a place to sit. The members of the Belen church have been meeting here since 2020, and, in five years, are already outgrowing the space. How has it grown so quickly? “They’re really involved in the community,” explains one of the new members.
The line between community involvement and church growth isn’t necessarily a direct one. Only one of the Laundry Love patrons, an unhoused man who received a lot of support from the church when he began chemotherapy treatments, has visited the church. And yet, the church is undoubtedly growing. But it is not growth that motivates these church members. It is the opportunity to make a difference, to live as Jesus lived.
“Everybody loves to be clean,” said Valladarez. “We don’t know what they are doing tomorrow. We don’t know if they have an interview or whatever. But having these clothes washed at no expense makes a big difference to them.”
“When Jesus was here on this earth, He did the same thing,” added Carpenter. “He served the people who had need.”
Eventually, the washers stop spinning. The quarters accomplish their mission. But the love lingers—on a baby shower invitation, in the warmth of freshly laundered clothes, in a small church that’s growing, not because of a focus on growth, but because of a focus on service.
By Lori Futcher. Futcher is the Record managing editor and associate communications director at the Southwestern Union. She lives in Keene, Texas, with her family. The Laundry Love volunteers, Peggy Duenas, Charlotte Tenorio, Betty Carpenter and Victoria Valladarez are members of the Belen Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Texico Conference.
