May 19, 2004

Contact: Nancye Willis
(615) 742-5406
e-mail: nwillis@umcom.org

Laundry Patrons Get Opportunity To Clean Souls as Well as Clothes; United Methodist Ministry Takes Message to Streets

 ARLINGTON, Texas—When Arlington residents visit a coin laundry, they sometimes get the opportunity to cleanse their souls as well as their clothes, thanks to a United Methodist-related ministry.

In the nation’s largest city without public transportation, Arlington Urban Ministries reaches out to those who can’t get to church. Focusing on laundries because hundreds of people walk to them, often with children in tow, the ministry provides gifts of fruit, candy and even laundry detergent, along with a spiritual element.

(Arlington Urban Ministries and its Laundromat ministry are featured in the UMTV video report “Suds and Souls” the week of May 19. It is available at the UMTV Web site www.umtv.org.)

Arlington, located midway between Dallas and Fort Worth, is home to a sizeable Hispanic and Vietnamese population, which also includes refugees from Iraq, Africa and other countries, and has its share of homeless residents.

“Those are the ones that Christ talks about that the church is to reach, the poor and the needy,” says Ron McLeroy, a volunteer with the Urban Ministries program. “I truly believe that we have to go outside the church to do that.”

For the past two years, McLeroy, who is studying to be a United Methodist minister, has dropped by laundries on Saturday and Sunday to conduct three-minute Sunday school classes for children. His laundry liturgies often evoke surprise.

Arlington resident Yolanda Mathews remarks on his efforts at one laundry, where, only 20 minutes earlier, “there were people in here wanting money for food. And then right after that, someone comes in and hands out food.”

Arlington Urban Ministries, started by First United Methodist Church, Arlington, in 1997, became an independent, non-profit corporation three years ago. Along with its laundry ministry, it offers a storefront ministry to respond to needs such as food, transportation, and emergency monetary assistance; a resale shop; a “Living in the U.S.A” English tutorial program; and a weekend Sidewalk Sunday school at an apartment complex.

More information on Arlington Urban Ministries is available at the organization’s Web site: www.trinityumcarlington.org/urban_Min.htm.