By Daegan Waagmeester
Social Media Editor

Laundry is one of the most necessary yet overlooked processes we use in our day-to-day lives.

“Having clean clothes is such an important part of confidence within our world, to get work and get a date,” said Nash Hascall, event manager at LoveOne, a charity that focuses on bringing free laundry to local communities.

Event manager, Nash Hascall poses for a photo at LoveOnes Oregon City event. Photo by Gabriel Elmosleh

LoveOne is a local Oregon charity that provides showers, food bank services and housing solutions for the unhoused. However the main attraction is their free laundry events in which they have provided over 368 tons of clean laundry to communities. Anyone can come down and do free laundry for an evening and get a good meal and good hospitality.

People use the free laundry services. Photo by Gabriel Elmosleh

One of LoveOne’s recent events was held at Brax Laundry in Oregon City, less than two miles from the Clackamas Community College campus.

“People who are in school are often like I was: spending money on school and can’t afford to go out to eat or do $30 worth of laundry. People can show up and we don’t ask questions. We just get a first name and get you on the list.” said Nash.

People hand out toiletries and food. Photo by Gabriel Elmosleh

However as they have expanded, they currently run events in several other locations.

LoveOne’s consistent event schedule

Nash said it all started with one man who saw folks in need.

“Our start was with laundry,” Nash said. “A gentleman named Dave McAdams, he was in Milwaukie doing laundry and saw this woman who was out of quarters and she couldn’t do laundry, so she was really distressed so he offered to pay for her laundry. Then kind of just saw the need within his own community. And so in various restaurants he got permission to put in gumball machines. And then he would use those quarters to host his laundry events and pay for people’s laundry. And so that grew into a volunteer run organization. Since then it’s grown into what we see today.”

Upcoming free laundry events are posted on OneLove’s website.