Making the day-to-day easier for those living in the margins

Nancy Dyson has spent almost her entire adult life working with the homeless to make their lives easier in some way, whether making community meals, handing out supplies, offering a mobile shower service or starting the St. Cloud chapter of Laundry Love.

The St. Cloud State University alumna was picking her children up from piano lessons one day in the early 2010s when she realized there were people living in and around Lake George Park in St. Cloud. Looking to help them in some small way or somehow make their mornings easier, she asked one of her daughters what they should do. At first, Dyson and her family would take coffee to those living in the area before church on Sundays. Sunday coffee soon turned into a community breakfast.

“As we did that, we got to know some of the people and where they were staying, and by the end of three or four months of doing that — I would pull my van up and all these people would come out from wherever they were sleeping for the night and unload my car,” she said. “By that time we had grills, we were doing eggs and bacon and had carafes of coffee and fruits and whatever, and it was really this communal meal that was sort of organically created.”

During one of those community meals, Dyson noticed some of the Lake George residents washing their clothes in the fountain. They didn’t have the resources or access to do their laundry properly.

“It was the first time I really considered how difficult it was to navigate the world if you had everything on your back,” she said.

Around that time, Dyson stumbled upon Laundry Love on social media, and researched the initiative. The organization “washes the clothes and bedding of low/no income families and person(s) across the U.S.” and aims to “brighten the lives of thousands of people through love, dignity and detergent by partnering with diverse groups and laundromats nationwide.” Dyson went back to the Lake George group and asked them if anyone would be interested, and got a resounding “Yes.” She said people can start a Laundry Love chapter on their own, or can register with the national organization for support in starting up a local effort.

Dyson took Laundry Love’s advice and called up a local laundromat back in 2014 to see what its slowest business day was, and St. Cloud Laundry Love was born. She brought three of the Lake George residents to Kipp’s Laundry in St. Cloud on a Tuesday morning with a jar of quarters she had scrounged together, a jug of laundry detergent and some sandwiches. Once the laundry was finished, she asked the group if they should try it again in a couple of weeks. They agreed, but Dyson made sure to tell them they needed to get the word out and invite others to join. Two weeks later, the group had doubled in size. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic paused many businesses and organizations in March 2020, St. Cloud Laundry Love was operating in Kipp’s Laundry as well as Wash-n-Tan in Sauk Rapids and was serving over 100 people at a time. Hours had long since extended, and the sandwiches turned into a full potluck meal at both locations. Dyson said that those using the service were homeless, as well as those who were “on the cusp” or dipping in and out of homelessness — both individuals as well as families.

“It’s become so much more than just laundry. Laundry’s what started it, but now it’s this little community that forms every couple weeks,” she said. “People know when they come that they’re not going to be judged, they’re not going to be scrutinized as to how much they need this or not — you don’t have to qualify. We figure anybody willing to schlep all their laundry to a laundromat needs it. We have people that just come for the food, people that come to visit with us because we’ve known people for so long now.”

While the pandemic paused St. Cloud Laundry Love for a time, the group has steadily come back as restrictions eased up and more businesses returned to normal. At first individual bags with quarters and detergent pods were handed out, until the program was able to return to meeting every other week. The local chapter is currently at Kipp’s Laundry and is serving about 50 people each time, with hopes that it will add a Sauk Rapids location back to its rotation in the near future. As they gather each week, Dyson said they’ve celebrated together as well as cried and laughed together.

“We say we partnered with people that were struggling at the time and we weren’t doing this for people. It’s really a partnership with people who are struggling,” she said. “If you were to come to Laundry Love — when you walk in, you really can’t tell who the volunteers are and who the people being helped are, and that’s by design. Everybody there has something to offer, everybody has something to gain.”

She credits her time at St. Cloud State with giving her the foundation to better help her community. Dyson graduated in 1988, majoring in social work and minoring in minority studies as well as human relations. She got her first hands-on experience working with the community through volunteering with The Salvation Army at the recommendation of one of her SCSU professors at the time.

“That was kind of a game changer. When I think about how I ended up in what I’m doing now, I have to say that was a pivotal moment,” she said. “I realized that those people are really just like everybody else. And I was 19, 20 at the time. I credit St. Cloud State with that pivotal moment.”

After graduation, Dyson worked for Boys & Girls Clubs for several years, up until she had her first child. She was a stay-at-home mother for about 20 years, but volunteered in the community throughout that time with groups and efforts such as the Girl Scouts, Sunday school, Sartell festivals and just about anything else going on in her community. She now works for 180 Degrees St. Cloud Youth Shelter, working with both the children in the shelter as well as in advancing the organization’s efforts.

“That’s been really exciting, to be able to use some of the skills I’ve learned with people out on the streets for kids who are struggling with homelessness. I have to give St. Cloud State credit, because a lot of those skills came in really handy,” she said. “My best teachers, I think, were actually the people out on the street. They taught me what authenticity looks like and how to overcome struggles.”

During the height of the pandemic, Dyson and her partner Jason Jaques — who also organizes Laundry Love — decided to check on some of the Lake George residents. Not only did Laundry Love have to pause during the pandemic, but many other services did as well — services that provided meals, places that offered outlets for charging phones or shelter to cool down in extreme heat, as well as bathroom facilities and drinking fountains. On one visit to Lake George, Dyson saw people filling their water bottles in the fountain — the same fountain residents had been washing laundry in years ago. Dyson and Jaques started gathering supplies and donations of food and other items, especially bottled water, and started going around in a caravan to hand the items out. The couple also put together a mobile shower out of a caravan they outfitted after hearing of the struggle homeless people were facing to find shower facilities. They called it Shower the People, but have since retired the van in order to focus more on their other efforts.

“We believed that, whatever we did, we wanted to do it well,” Dyson said. “You hold onto your mission with one hand, and you reach as far as you can with the other hand and do as much as you can, but if you’re reaching so far you have to let go of your mission, then you’ve reached too far or stretched too thin.”

Dyson hopes to keep building St. Cloud Laundry Love back up to its pre-pandemic numbers and beyond. She hopes to build up the number of locations and partnerships as well, and that — when the day comes that she and Jacques are ready to step back, the program continues seamlessly.

“The goal of laundry Love is to be as big as we need to be for this space, the area we’re serving. We’re here to make day-to-day life a little bit easier for people that are living in the margins,” she said. “I’ve definitely credited what I learned at St. Cloud State with encouraging me to go out and do the things I’m doing in the world. This is my community, and St. Cloud State is a huge part of that. They’re a pillar in the community. I credit a lot of where I’m at now to the education that I got there.”