Thanks to Amore Coffee for their support. Amore hosts free homework help for all ages, led by retired professors, on Sundays from 4-6 p.m.
A local church teamed up with a West St. Paul laundromat to offer free laundry once a month. It’s called Laundry Love, and more than clean clothes it’s about community and connection.
Why: “When I lived in apartments, that’s how I got to know my neighbors,” said Brit Hiedeman, one of the organizers and a member at First Presbyterian Church of South St. Paul, which secured the funding.
- Where: Clothesline Laundromat at 1838 Oakdale in West St. Paul.
- When: The second Thursday of each month from 5 to 7 p.m. The next one is October 9.
- What: Free laundry—everyone gets two free wash/dry cycles. Just check in with a volunteer (they’re tracking numbers, not names). Plus, there are often snacks and a fun atmosphere.
- How: First Presbyterian Church of South St. Paul is making it happen thanks to Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area grant that funds projects with community partners.
Building Community
Free laundry is certainly about helping people who can’t afford it: “Life is just so expensive for everybody—it’s very, very hard to get by,” said Hiedeman. “These are little ways you can make life less bad or just make things better for people in a nearby community.”
There’s also an element of helping with chores: “If there’s a little way we can make the unfun parts of life more fun, or at least not completely irritating, we would like to do that,” Hiedeman said.
But for Hiedeman, who used to live in West St. Paul and moved to South St. Paul in 2021, it’s about community:
- More than laundry: “Third spaces, places that aren’t work or your home, are going by the wayside in modern society or they’re becoming cost prohibitive,” said Hiedeman. “We wanted this to function as kind of a third space where people actually aren’t just doing their laundry, they’re hanging out and getting to know each other.”
- Support: “People just feel isolated” Hiedeman said. “As a young parent, you sometimes get the sense of ‘well, the village doesn’t exist anymore.’ And talking with this other woman was like, oh, we can be each other’s village for this two hour period of time.”
What’s Next
The program will continue on the second Thursday of each month through July of 2026.
“We’re the only one in the Twin cities,” Hiedeman said. “So it’d be great if more places started doing programs like this.”
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