Joy Krause spent 20 years scrubbing toilets and cleaning windows in people's homes in order to support her family as a single mother. Now, at 52, Krause cleans the shelters of homeless women and their children for free. In 1996, Krause sold her cleaning business, Maids of Rhode Island, which she had built from nothing and expanded to fifty employees. A struggling divorced mom for many years, her primary focus had been her two children, both of whom had gone on to college and recently moved away. Approaching 50, Krause felt something was missing in her life, and needed a change. She decided to sell her business, move to Florida near her daughter, write a book about her experiences as a cleaning lady, and volunteer to help children and single mothers.
"I was all alone for the first time, and I was burned out running a business," Krause says. "There was no longer a challenge in it for me. It was time to hand the reigns over to someone else. I knew there were other things I had to do, although I wasn't sure what they were. And in order to move on, I had to leave this business behind.
"Selling my business was difficult emotionally. I had lots and lots of friends, I knew my customers' families, had gone to their weddings and funerals and bah mitzvahs. But it was time to start a new life, and I wanted to be near my kids."
Krause, who experienced violence in her own childhood, desired to help children who had suffered abuse, but was unclear how to go about it. In Florida, she volunteered at a children's hospital.
"I had always known I wanted to be of service and involved with children and single mothers in some way," Krause says. "I volunteered at a children's hospital, but I couldn't do much there. I wanted to do something more, but I didn't know what."
At the same time, Krause began work on her book, "Spring Cleaning For the Soul."
"When I was cleaning, I'd learn about the people in the houses," Krause says. "And I'd make notes on paper towels, post it notes, toilet paper, whatever was handy, and put them all in a shoe box. After I sold the business, I took the shoe box down and the notes became this book."
Each chapter of "Spring Cleaning For the Soul" details an encounter in Krause's experience as a cleaning lady from which she gained insight, wisdom or inspiration. Included are stories like the eighty-year-old female client who played Elvis records and asked Krause to dance with her after cleaning, and the employee who continued to take care of an older woman's house when she ran out of money. Throughout the book, Krause learns to stand up to clients who try to cheat her, and to take pride in her work, in addition to revisiting her unfulfilled dreams of taking to the stage.
Believing that the lessons she had learned from her clients and their anecdotal stories would be interesting to people despite a lack of response from publishers, Krause decided to self-publish her book.
"I knew these stories would help people, and I wanted to tell them," she says. "I bought a book about self-publishing and followed the instructions step by step. And I didn't give up. I don't have the word 'can't' in my vocabulary."
The book slowly gained media recognition, and once Krause began to make some money from her book, the idea came to her to donate her time cleaning homeless shelters for single mothers and their children while on her book tour. She calls this campaign "Sparkle America."
"I've always felt that the work was more than cleaning up dirt. I felt I was serving others," Krause says. "I asked God to be shown where I was needed, and all the pieces fell into place. A friend knew someone who knew someone else who knew of a shelter in Everett, Washington, the Housing Hope project. And they happened to have nothing else going on that day. And I happened to get a local maid service to agree to clean with me."
That experience kicked off the Sparkle America campaign, and Krause and local volunteers will clean shelters in LA, Nashville, Jacksonville, Baltimore and Dallas by the end of 1998.
"I believe this has happened exactly the way it was meant to happen," Krause says. "I knew I'd been shown a way to help these children. The shelters are where they live and play, and where I could interact with them. I'm over my bitterness and anger about the violence in my childhood, and I want to help others. It's rampant in our society and getting worse.
"Most of the kids (in the shelters) come from homes that are violent. Eighty percent of women in homeless shelters have experienced violence in their lives. The fastest growing population of homeless people are single moms with kids. These kids come from stressful environments, they have low self-esteem. They deserve a clean, well-kept place. For them to know that someone cares enough to make the effort to care for their environment is important.
"Service to me is nothing more than love in work clothes. I go in not just to clean, but to show them that they deserve attention, affection, and an attractive environment. That they are honorable and dignified."
Krause's concern extends to the mothers as well as the children.
"I had a lot of single moms work for me over the years, and I was one," she says. "I know how important it is to feel appreciated. And these are women who don't want to be on the state dole. They're moms who work at fast food places, and by the time they pay the bills, there's no more money left to pay rent, so they end up sleeping where they can, in their car, wherever."
Krause hopes her Sparkle America campaign will generate more awareness of , and funding for, the plight of these women and their children.
"People need to wake up and pay attention to what's happening to our children," Krause says. "A homeless person isn't just someone in rags on a street corner. We're talking about small children and their families. They're filling our homeless shelters. These shelters often offer just transitional housing, shelter and training for one year. And they operate on a shoe string usually, run by a lot of volunteers."
To lighten the atmosphere for her shelter cleanings and other public appearances, Krause often dresses in full power cleaning uniform, replete with belt and backpack, brooms, spray bottles and toilet plunger poking out in all directions.
"At the Everett shelter," she says, "the children were sitting eating breakfast, and I came in wearing all my cleaning gear, a feather duster sticking out, bucket dangling from my belt. At first they were going 'Who is this wacky lady?' But I got them laughing, and I always give the kids a little present, like a toilet key chain. And I explained that we were all going to help clean.
"Most of these kids have been in some pretty traumatic situations. So my goal was to have it be fun. I told them stories about the importance of keeping places clean, how children can help, and how cleaning isn't just for women. When I picked this one little boy up, and he tickled me with the feather duster, I had one of those moments where I just knew I was exactly where I needed to be.
"One of the reasons we were successful (with Maids of Rhode Island,) was that we didn't take ourselves too seriously. We viewed it all lightly and kept a good sense of humor which made it enjoyable. The fun aspect has carried over. That's why I dress up like a wacko. When you have someone laughing, they're with you. If I can bring humor and laughter into these shelters, I'm happy. That's what it's all about. The most rewarding part of Sparkle America is the look on the kids faces, the laughter, and knowing that my presence there might make a difference.
"And a massive cleaning always gets done, floors scrubbed by hand, the kitchen cleaned top to bottom, and the windows. We're pretty dirty when we're done. These shelters get a lot of volunteers to do things, but no one ever volunteers to clean."
In the future, Krause hopes to be able to line up more shelters to clean, eventually establishing a non-profit foundation for Sparkle America. In the meantime, her book continues to gain recognition, as Krause does more speaking engagements and offers seminars at a local college.
"I feel my life is abundant, rich beyond my dreams," Krause says. "Service and love go together. That's why we're all here. Our job is to discover our uniqueness and talents, develop them and use them to make a difference in the world."
The Sparkle America campaign can be reached at 1-800-791-8799.
published in January 17, 1999 in The Chicago Tribune
copyright 2003 Ellen Nordberg . all rights reserved .
ENordberg@mindspring.com