Laundry is a sensory pleasure for me: the smell of detergent and dryer sheets, the warmth of clothes fresh from the dryer, the satisfaction of a stack of clean clothes ready to be worn again. I know that not everyone feels this way, nor that everyone has the privilege of easy access to laundry facilities, but still, I was delighted to sit in a laundromat for this conversation with Jamie Jones, a nursing student who started a neighborhood nonprofit focused on laundry. We met at City Limits Laundry in Walnut Hills to learn more about Laundry Love Cincinnati.

Interview by Suzanne Wilder. Photography by Alex Larrison.

Start off by telling me about yourself. How’d you get here?

I’m originally from the Bay Area in California. My parents are pastors and missionaries. They actually moved to the Philippines to live there full-time right when I graduated from high school. Living in the Bay Area, because it’s so expensive, it’s really hard to be a college student and take care of yourself. We never really had many resources, so the only thing I thought to do to survive was to start working full-time right away. After four years, I decided to start going back to school.

I moved to Cincinnati two years ago to go to nursing school. I ended up here because it’s near impossible to get into nursing school along the west coast. I ended up looking all over the country – Texas, Colorado, New York, Florida, everywhere. Cincinnati made the most sense financially with the cost of school, cost of living, and everything being in really close proximity.

Had you ever been here before coming here for school?

No! So I applied to several schools: U.C. and The Christ College of Nursing. I got into both, but I decided on The Christ College of Nursing. The classes were smaller; it was more of an intimate setting. So after I got in, I came to Cincinnati, went apartment hunting, and moved. That was pretty much it.

Tell me about Laundry Love – where did that idea come from? How did it start?

It was kind of like a bunch of ideas and realizations all clicking together. Growing up in the Silicon Valley, you learn that you shouldn’t pre-judge people in a good or bad way – because the person sitting next to you in a coffee shop wearing a raggedy Hawaiian T-shirt and flip-flops could actually be a bazillionaire. And the person who is begging on the street corner for food and money could actually be working five jobs trying to provide for their family. You really have no idea what people are going through, and it’s unfortunate that we are judged first based on our appearance.

Once I go down a rabbit hole, there’s no stopping me.

Another realization was that, as a nursing student, I lived here in Walnut Hills; I lived in an old Victorian home, and I was paying $30 a month for laundry, myself. And I was just thinking about people who have families or who have limited resources, how much more expensive it would be for them. I had volunteered regularly at several different organizations – one was the soup kitchen; another was based around clothing. I was thinking about these food banks and kitchens that give food to people, but if someone doesn’t have a place to store their food, or if their electricity isn’t on because they can’t pay the bill, what good is that going to do? Similarly with clothing, we can give women clothing for interviews, for example, but how are they going to afford to wash or dry-clean their clothes? How are they going to find support to maintain these items of clothing? You can’t go to interviews wearing dirty clothes.

A lot of these ideas coming together made me do a little research about the types of organizations that were here in Cincinnati. When I was looking up different organizations here that were based around laundry, the national organization, Laundry Love, came up. What I thought I wanted to do – just pay for people’s laundry, create a community, help people get on their feet, provide a basic hygienic need – was exactly what they were doing. I reached out to them and asked if I could start one here in Cincinnati. And they said yes.

So they have locations all over the U.S.?

Yes. So the way it works for a lot of Laundry Love locations is they work under other nonprofits. It’s another project within an organization. Maybe a church has a project revolving around a Laundry Love, or maybe a school does.

With this, I decided to turn Laundry Love Cincinnati into a 501(c)(3) so we could do our own thing and host our events the way we felt was best for the community and maybe even do more. Besides just doing laundry, we also give socks and hygiene products to our neighbors; we have snacks and coffee; we have toys and games for kids, as well. All of our volunteers are paired one-on-one with our neighbors. We really just get to know everyone; we talk to everyone. It really is a community here at the laundromat.

Starting a nonprofit is an enormous amount of work. Did you know what you were getting into?

I knew this was uncharted territory for myself. I’ve not started something like this before, but my parents have. When I was a teenager, they had their own nonprofit. I was able to go to my mom and ask a lot of questions about legalities and how to actually do things. But I’m also very ambitious. Once I go down a rabbit hole, there’s no stopping me. I knew this was something that I was really, really passionate about and I was going to figure it out and do it, no matter how hard it was. I was a little bit prepared for how difficult it was, but once you’re actually doing it and you realize how exhausting it is, it can be overwhelming. Especially when you’re new to a city, you’re new to this area, and you don’t know anyone. You have to figure out who to go to, what resources to find, and who can help you the best.

When you hear people’s stories and hear the impact on people’s lives – that is life-changing, every single time.

How did you get the word out? What were your starting points?

I drafted up a kind of mini-business plan. “This is what I’m doing; these are what my goals are; this is what I’m trying to accomplish.” Then I sent it out to different laundromats to figure out who would allow me to host events. I also spoke to the town council here in Walnut Hills about the things I was trying to do. It was really knocking on doors and just trying to talk to whoever would listen.

What has surprised you the most about starting and running this nonprofit?

It was surprising to see how hard it is to find volunteers. I thought that would be the easiest part. We had to cancel one event because of the lack of volunteers; that really hurt my heart and surprised me the most.

I was surprised by the overwhelming amount of gratitude and participation with the community and with our neighbors. How many people we were actually serving. How crazy-packed this place could be. Hearing people’s stories. I knew this was a need; I knew this was something that had to be done. When you hear people’s stories and hear the impact on people’s lives – that is life-changing, every single time. I knew it, but when you hear it, it confirms that the hard work has really paid off.

How can people help? If they feel called to action, what would you love to have them do?

Go to our website. We have a volunteer application they can fill out. We do also need donations. It’s expensive to run these events, to pay for the machines. I plan on doing this indefinitely, but the only way we can do that is if we have the funding and we have the volunteers and the support from the community. Even to expand our events, to do two events a month or serve a different community – we can’t do that alone. We need hands; we need people who are willing to work directly with the community, and we need the funds to do that.

I’m also bad at running social media. If anyone out there is really into that and wants to volunteer to run our Instagram or our Facebook pages, I’m all for that as well.

You’re doing a lot; you’re in the middle of a lot. Who or what refreshes you, or calms you?

My fiancé is my biggest source of peace, for sure. I play guitar and piano, and I love singing. So anytime I can just sit in front of my instruments, that helps clear my mind and brings me a lot of peace. And I love yoga and meditation and pilates. Anytime I can be physical and work out, that really helps clear my mind. I do jiujitsu.

Tell us about an influential woman in your life.

My mom is just the most incredible woman. She’s the type of woman or person who would give the shirt off her back to someone who needed it. She lives in the Philippines. They don’t get paid for their work that they do there. By her standards, she doesn’t live a very typical life in poverty. She’s very grateful. But she’s the hardest working person I know, the most selfless; she has the biggest heart. She’s the true definition of empathy put into action, as well. She can’t just stand idly by as she watches people suffer. She definitely takes action on what tugs at her heart. She was kind of a strict, typical Philippino mother; she would always remind us of our cousins in the Philippines who had much less than we did. She would give us that ‘Think of the kids in a third-world country” kind of thing. It instilled a value in me that you should be thinking of other people and be grateful for what you have.

At a young age, she taught us humility and what it’s like to help other people. When she started her nonprofit – it was called Scholars for Jesus – when I was in high school, she would raise money to pay for [Filipino] children’s tuition or school clothes or school supplies or transportation costs. Seeing that and how dedicated she was to the church, to her volunteer work, really impacted me. When I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, what I wanted to do was to help people. That came from my mom. That’s all she ever did, as well – just constantly trying to make the world around her a better place. I love my mom. If I can be half the woman she is, I’m set up for success.

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Jamie Jones: Laundry Love Cincinnati