KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, local cleaning business Jeannie Cleaning hosted its first-ever “Cleaning for Cancer Day,” which was a volunteer effort to help clean houses for cancer patients.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15th, Jeannie Cleaning partnered with several local volunteers for the event.
“We are planning to make it an annual event, this is our first annual,” Jeannie Cleaning CEO and Owner Jeannie Henderson said in an interview. “The goal of the event was to provide free cleaning services for as many cancer patients as we could in one day. These patients were located in and around Kalamazoo County, and today we were fortunate enough to clean for five cancer patients.”
The effort by Jeannie Cleaning was actually part of a larger movement to clean cancer patients’ houses.
“Our business is a parter company with an organization called Cleaning for a Reason, which was started several years ago around 2005,” Henderson said. “My coach and mentor Debbie Sardone started the organization. She had received a request for a cleaning for a cancer patient who could not afford cleaning services, and at the time, she wasn’t able to provide it, but then after, she felt moved by the whole experience, so she decided ‘never again,’ if a cancer patient called her…she would provide free cleaning services for them.”
Sardone’s efforts to provide free cleaning services caught on with other companies.
“She started doing that in her own cleaning company, she shared it at a national cleaning conference, and many other cleaning businesses said they wanted to participate, and that was the beginning of Cleaning For a Reason,” Henderson said. “Now, there are over 1200 cleaning businesses across the US and Canada who participate, and so far our group has served over 37,000 families and donated over $12 million worth of cleaning services. Jeannie Cleaning here in Kalamazoo is just a small part of that, but we’re excited to be part of it and be able to give back to our community that way.”
Henderson was pleased to meet with the patients before cleaning for them.
“As we were preparing for the event, the opportunity to meet with patients and hear their stories and just get to know them and understand how we’re going to be able to help them was a blessing,” Henderson said. “We had some volunteers who came to help us, because to add on those extra clients would be difficult for our regular staff to fit that into the day with the regular business that we do. So some volunteers came out and they did an outstanding job and were able to participate with us and get to meet some of the patients, and also just help make their lives better. It’s very rewarding.”
Later on Tuesday, the staff and volunteers were able to reflect on the event.
“Our staff was able to come together and share stories about what it was like and how cancer patients were so happy to have their homes cleaned,” Henderson said. “It’s so stressful to be treated for cancer, and most of these patients are going through chemo or some other form of treatment. Their bodies are tired and exhausted, and it’s so frustrating for them to be home and not be able to do the things that they normally like to do. It was just such a joy for all of us to be able to help them come home to a wonderfully sparkling clean home.”
Henderson hopes that other cleaning companies will join in with the volunteer effort, as many patients are in need of help.
“I encourage other cleaning business owners and individual cleaning people to visit www.cleaningforareason.org, where they can sign up to become a partner business,” Henderson said. “The commitment is only one free cleaning donated per month. As our business has grown, we are cleaning for at least one cancer patient a week right now, but there are so many other patients in need, and also in the counties surrounding us. We only serve Kalamazoo County, so all the counties surrounding us, we received several calls from far away from people who wanted cleaning today. I encourage cleaning business owners to consider participating and joining the effort to help cancer patients have the relief of a clean home.”
More information can be found online at www.cleaningforareason.org.
