SEQUIM – The five-member confirmation class at St. Joseph Parish has collected five years’ worth of laundry pods — 35,418 to be exact — for a shelter serving the unhoused in Clallam County.

“We were amazed at the generous response,” said Deacon Dan Powers, who teaches the confirmation class with Morgan Nolan, the parish’s youth ministry leader.

The project included a parish bingo fundraiser, in-person donations of laundry pods and cash to purchase more, and a GoFundMe page that raised more than $1,600.

“We had donations from as far away as Heidelberg, Germany; Paris, France; and England,” Deacon Powers said in an email.

At two weekend Masses where Deacon Powers — who was homeless as a teenager — spoke about the project, more than $1,300 was collected, Nolan said.

“Our parishioners are very, very generous, especially when it comes to the kids,” she said of the 675-household parish. “It shows the kids how to have a heart that gives.”

The laundry pods project was a way to teach the confirmation students about the importance of the corporal works of mercy and serving others, she said. Students are required to do 30 hours of service for the parish and community in the months leading up to their confirmation, slated for May 25.

Besides collecting the laundry pods, the students earlier gathered donations of “hundreds and hundreds” of hats, gloves, scarves and socks for those in need, Nolan said. Some confirmation students, like her son, are altar servers and one student volunteers at a local soup kitchen, she said.

“We push service so much because once you’re an adult Catholic, you become a person that serves or you become a person that warms the pews,” Nolan said.

Keeping young people connected to the church — the parish started a Sunday night youth group last year — and teaching them to take ownership of their parish and community sets a faith foundation for the rest of their lives, she explained.

“I absolutely have confidence that they will be lifelong practicing Catholics,” Nolan said of her son and daughter. “I want that for the other kids too, and so do their parents.”

The dignity of clean clothes

The laundry pods collected by the confirmation students were donated to Serenity House of Clallam County in Port Angeles, located about 20 miles from Sequim. The nonprofit’s services include a 24/7 adult shelter that serves three meals a day, has 150 beds, provides regular access to medical and sobriety services, and offers shower and laundry facilities, said Sharon Maggard, the executive director.

Those free laundry facilities are important to people experiencing homelessness, Maggard said. Many public laundry facilities now take only payment cards, and it can cost $6 to $7 per load, she explained.

“If you’re homeless, you probably don’t have that,” she said, or need to use the money for food rather than clean clothes.

Morgan Nolan and Deacon Dan Powers, teachers of the confirmation class at St. Joseph Parish in Sequim, are ready to deliver laundry pods to Serenity House of Clallam County’s homeless shelter in Port Angeles. The pods were collected by five students as they prepare to be confirmed May 25. (Photo courtesy of Morgan Nolan)

Each day, people coming to the shelter do about 15 to 20 loads of laundry, which totals some 7,300 loads each year, Maggard said. The shelter previously used powdered laundry soap, which was messy and the staff had to measure out for each client, she noted.

About 18 months ago, when Deacon Powers — a Serenity House board member — asked what the shelter needed help with, Maggard mentioned her interest in switching over to premeasured laundry pods.

“As a former homeless person,” Deacon Powers said in an email, “I can assure you that there is no end to small, seemingly insignificant things that restore human dignity. Two words … clean underwear.”

He responded to the shelter’s need, collecting about 1,100 pods, Maggard said. Then board president Julie Fisher, a member of Queen of Angels Parish in Port Angeles, took on the project for Christmas, collecting another 1,100 pods.

Next, Deacon Powers decided to turn the laundry pods project over to the confirmation class at St. Joseph. Last year’s class collected 3,600 pods, Nolan said.

No one expected the huge response this year.

“The whole thing was very, very divine,” Nolan said.

Parishioners donated 7,768 laundry pods. With the monetary donations received, the parish purchased more pods from Marvin, a wholesaler in Missouri who “gave us an outstanding deal … $42 for a box of 350 (pods), including shipping. We ordered 79 boxes,” Nolan said in an email.

Maggard expressed appreciation for Catholics stepping up to help the shelter.

“It’s been a real blessing to us that the board members who are affiliated with the Catholic Church have been so willing to take something on,” she said.

On its Facebook page, the shelter shared a photo of the confirmation students and some of the laundry pods they collected.

“This small little group did so much,” said Morgan Bartholick, business development manager for Serenity House. “It’s really inspiring.”