For The Laundry Truck LA nonprofit, laundry is not a chore. It's a calling.
Here are Gabriel Ruiz's care instructions for a good life: be grateful for blessings. Do your work well. Forget about labels. And when given the chance to help others, by all means, lighten their load.
Only seven days into his new job as a team member of The Laundry Truck LA, Ruiz, 48, of El Sereno, has a routine down. The nonprofit mobile laundry service started in 2019 as a way to help homeless people, often matched with agencies that offer mobile showers. But since the Eaton Fire, The Laundry Truck LA has also offered its services to wildfire victims, many now homeless themselves.
For Ruiz, who said he's skirted the edge of being homeless in the past, "it's a wonderful thing and it makes me feel good to be able to help. I love doing laundry. It's therapeutic for me."
The truck makes twice-weekly stops at Pasadena's First AME Church on Raymond Avenue. The Rev. Larry E. Campbell, its senior pastor, makes sure the truck has its water connection set in the parking lot. The service is invaluable for the 72 church members whose homes burned to rubble in the Eaton Fire, as well as many from the area.
The church still functions as a community resource center, offering free lunches, brunches, legal advice, social time, and supplies.
People sign up to drop off their laundry, sorted or not, which are labeled from washing to drying to folding and packing. Inside the teal truck are five washers and dryers, a storage area, and a folding table.
Dirty Labs detergent and boosters, as well as Clorox laundry sanitizers are the go-to supplies, donated by both companies. Dirty Labs' bio enzyme laundry detergent is accepted by the National Eczema Association, recognized by PETA as a cruelty-free product and is verified to meet by the health and safety standards of the Environmental Working Group.
The truck's main sponsor is Anthem Blue Cross, with additional support from private donors, and SoCal Gas and The Salvation Army, among others.
The truck completes 40 loads of laundry on a regular day, but team members have gone through as much as 60 in one stop. Everything gets washed in cold water, to save energy and fabric wear and the laundry, washed, dried, folded and packed, is usually done in hours.
"There are so many people who are suffering right now, this is a beautiful company doing this service," Ruiz said. "It's enough just getting the job done, to let them know we're here for them."
Angelica Naccarati, 55, of La Cañada Flintridge, is the nonprofit's program manager. Her family had to evacuate during the Eaton Fire, but seeing the burned-out shells of homes and street after street devastated by the flames gives her a deeper appreciation for the little things that turn out to be big deals too.
"If you can do your own laundry, that means you have a family with clothes, you have power to run the washing machine, you're healthy enough to do the laundry. It gives you perspective to realize how blessed you are," Naccarati said.
Meeting wildfire victims from the Eaton wildfire, and Palos Verdes residents after a mudslides there in 2024, she said her job is not only to accept dirty laundry, but "it's a 'how are you' and 'I see you," she said. "One person told us we helped her feel human again."
"I know my job matters and that is so cool to me," Naccarati added. "It can feel good and it can be heartbreaking, hearing the stories of students who are homeless, and older people who are struggling, and now people dealing with disaster, but we're grateful and humbled and honored to jump in and help right away."
Paul Gibson, 79, of Altadena said the service allows him to focus on other things, such as caring for his grandchildren. It is one less thing he has to worry about.
"They're helping me retain my sanity," said Dee, a resident of The Meadows neighborhood in Altadena, who asked her last name not be used.
Her weekly visits to The Laundry Truck are a welcome respite from the daily stresses of life post-Eaton Fire.
On Jan. 7, the Altadena resident evacuated to the Pasadena Convention Center, where she caught COVID and the flu. Unable to find an affordable cellphone plan, she said she often learns of wildfire relief offers and programs too late. Still recovering from flooding in her home in 2021, Dee said she lost her home insurance before the fire and now has to remediate it herself.
She is going to the Altadena Disaster Recovery Center before returning to pick up her clothes.
"It's a lot of stress, but I love this," she said, greeting Andre Ribeiro, 41, of Los Angeles, as she dropped off three loads of laundry. "I so appreciate it."
Ribeiro, in charge of field operations for The Laundry Truck, said his close-up view of helping people dealing with so much hardship helped him realize his work is a calling. The musician only performs part-time now to be able to serve the nonprofit.
"At the end of the day, we all need each other," he said.
Founder Jodie Dolan was volunteering with The Shower of Hope mobile service in 2017 when she saw homeless people emerge from the showers clean and refreshed, only then to put on dirty, unwashed clothes.
The Laundry Truck is a way to help restore a sense of dignity and normalcy to individuals and families facing crisis, she said.
The nonprofit has three trucks working in both wildfire areas, as well as anywhere it is requested. They're scheduled to stay in the Eaton Fire-affected communities until the end of May.
Find The Laundry Truck LA from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesdays, at the Pasadena-Sierra Madre YMCA, 611 E. Sierra Madre Blvd., in Sierra Madre; from 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays, at Altadena Adventist Church, 2609 N. Lincoln Ave., Altadena; 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays, First AME Church, 1700 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena; 9 to 11 a.m. Saturdays, at the South Pasadena-San Marino YMCA, 1605 Garfield Ave., South Pasadena; and 9 to 11 a.m. Sundays, at First AME in Pasadena.
Its schedule in the greater Los Angeles area includes stops from 8 to 10 a.m. Mondays, and Fridays, at St. Francis Center, 1835 S. Hope St., Los Angeles; 8 to 10 a.m. Mondays, at Cypress Job Center, 2055 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles; 9 to 11 a.m. Thursdays, at Casa Milagrosa, 161 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles; 8 to 10 a.m. Fridays, at PIBBLA First Brazilian Baptist Church, 850 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles; and 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Fridays, at Salvation Army Red Shield, 1532 W. 11th St., Los Angeles.