By LINN ANN HUNTINTON
Special to Hays Post
Thanks to the financial support of a Hays church, a free laundry service for individuals in Ellis County is going to expand.
Laundry Love was begun by First Call for Help of Ells County in June 2024. Since then, it has provided low-income individuals the ability to wash and dry up to six loads of laundry free of charge once a month.
That free service has been provided at the 27th & Hall St. Laundromat, 507 W. 27th, on the third Thursday of every month from 4 to 6 p.m. That service will continue. But funding from Hays First United Methodist Church will provide an additional night on the first Thursday of each month, starting April 2 at a second location. That new location will be 8th Street Laundry Services, 225 E. Eighth St. The times will remain the same, from 4 to 6 pm., with the last load ending at 5:30 p.m.
According to information provided by First Call, in 2025 the Laundry Love program served 204 individuals, with 435 loads of laundry washed and dried completely free at the 27th and Hall location.
The Rev. Dr. Susan Murithi, senior pastor at Hays First United Methodist, said the fact that the program is so well used was a deciding factor in the church’s decision to sponsor the program at both laundromats for 2026.
Macey Pfeifer, First Call’s executive director, said that Sunflower Bank was the sponsor the past two years.
“We are so grateful to Sunflower Bank for bringing this opportunity to us in 2024. They sponsored us for 2024 and 2025 with their original donation of $3,500. First United Methodist’s sponsorship is $1,500 for the year for each location,” Pfeifer said.
First Call’s staff and volunteers will continue running the program at the 27th and Hall location, while volunteers from the church’s Missions and Community Engagement Committee will run the service at the Eighth Street location.
Laundry Love has a contract with Earth Breeze laundry detergent, which will provide boxes of the detergent sheets free of charge. Pfeifer said First Call will also have liquid laundry detergent available, along with fabric softener and dryer sheets. These will all be provided for free at both locations.
Pastor Murithi said the church recently revised its Mission Statement to focus more on 'serving and healing within our community.'
“Whenever we see brokenness or an area needing healing in the community, the congregation is great about stepping up. We try to be the hands and feet of Jesus.”
She said Greg Daughhetee, a member of the Missions and Community Engagement Committee, was the one who first heard about Laundry Love and took the idea of sponsoring the program to the committee.
Sherri Brown, chair of the committee, said the group suggested adding a downtown laundromat since many individuals lack the transportation to access the facility at 27th and Hall.
Pfeifer with First Call said she thought the idea was a good one. “Opening this location and having it on an additional day will give households the chance to utilize both nights and wash their clothes twice a month rather than once.”
Murithi said any time First United Methodist Church looks at sponsoring a new project, the members look at several questions: What project represents the greatest need? Do we have an adequate budget? Do we have sufficient people to do this project?
She said the church took up a special collection on Christmas Eve and decided to put all of the money collected toward community service. One of those community service projects was Laundry Love.
Murithi said her goal as a pastor is to have each member of the congregation find some type of outreach project that they can get involved with—whether it’s women knitting prayer shawls to give to people who are grieving; to the church members who help prepare and serve the hot meals once a week for the drive-thru Feeding Hays ministry; to those who volunteer overnight at The Hearth, the cold weather shelter run by the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance; to the young people who go shopping each Christmas for Angel Tree gifts for underprivileged children.
Murithi has been the pastor at Hays First United Methodist for about 1½ years. She said of all the churches she has served during her 20-year ministry, “this is one of the most passionate churches about outreach into the community.”
Pfeifer said, “Laundry Love is a wonderful program to have in our community. If you're not blessed enough to own your own machines, it can be quite expensive to wash your clothes every few days or even once a week. The cost adds up. We love that we have businesses/organizations/churches that are willing to be sponsors so this program can remain.
“Every month we have individuals thank us many times throughout the night for offering the program. It really puts into perspective how much you can take for granted. Future goals of Laundry Love would to be to get the word out more and make sure everyone in the community is aware that this is something that is offered.”
Pfeifer said that any organization or church interested in sponsoring Laundry Love in the future may contact her at 785-623-2800.