Sir Galloway Dry Cleaners, Rey’s Cleaners and Sudsies.com — three of Miami-Dade County’s premier dry cleaning and laundry services — are collecting their customers’ gently used clothing and other household items to be donated to Camillus House for distribution to persons who are poor and homeless in the community.
All three establishments provide customers with specially designed plastic collection bags for the clothing drive, which can be turned in at any of the five Sir Galloway and 23 Rey’s Cleaners locations in Greater Miami, or to Sudsies.com delivery personnel. All donated clothing will given directly to Camillus House for distribution.
The used clothing drive was the joint idea of Sir Galloway president Mark Mills, Rey’s president Angel Suarez and Sudsies.com president Jason Loeb. The three competing establishments kicked off the clothing collection in January and plan to conduct it on a long-term basis.
“All three companies share a commitment to serving the people in our community,” Mills said.
“So we are working together to support the vital social services provided by Camillus House and to connect our customers with the Camillus mission of ending chronic homelessness in Miami,” he added.
“Camillus House plays a very important part in bringing homelessness to an end by helping people not only at the moment of need, but helping them reinvent themselves and become part of the society at large,” Suarez said.
“We have great expectations for this drive and hope the partnership we’ve created with our dry-cleaning colleagues and Camillus House will make a difference in Miami,” he added.
“It’s critical that the community is aware of what we’re doing and gets involved,” Loeb said. “Camillus House has such an important purpose and message. If everyone helps out, it makes our community a better place to live and do business.”
The program also has created a unique opportunity for outside sponsors to support Camillus House. Any business can have its name printed on 10,000 clothing drive collection bags for a $5,000 donation to Camillus House. Brown & Brown, a Miami Lakes insurance group, already has stepped forward as sponsor of the program’s first 10,000 collection bags.
For more information about participating in the clothing drive or sponsoring the program, contact Camillus House vice president Sam Gil at 305-374-1065, ext. 328, or by email at samgil@camillushouse.org.
