It was a rainy Saturday in August in Cebu City, when an unofficial “laundry day” was observed by Electrolux and some of the city’s more prominent citizens. The company hosted a special laundry event dubbed the “Laundry Charity Marathon,” which was held on the grounds of Cebu’s Metro Ayala Mall.

The marathon entailed the washing of at least 1,000 kilos of used clothing utilizing 10 Electrolux washers and dryers. The donated clothes, which were received at the headquarters of ABS-CBN in Mandaue, the baggage counters of Metro Ayala and Metro Mandaue, were washed, dried, folded and sent to the local charity institution, Tabang Patrol.

The clothes, according to Electrolux’s marketing honcho Terry Sales, will be donated to the hundreds of people who lost their homes when a killer  typhoon ravaged Samar province.  The contribution of Electrolux was to supply the brand new washers and dryers to make the donated clothes look as good as new.

“We were overwhelmed by the response to this project,” says Sales. “The people at ABS-CBN projected to receive around 1,000 kilos of clothes from the Cebuanos but a lot more than that were donated. And rummaging through the clothes, we discovered they weren’t really old. They still looked good and actually looked worthier than the clothes we see at the ukay-ukay stores.”

The event at Metro Ayala washed and dried 1,000 kilos with prominent Cebu residents like Margot Osmeña (the city’s First Lady), businessmen Samuel Chioson, Dondi Joseph, Harley Ruedas, Philippine  Star Lifestyle columnist  Joy Subido, and singer Simon Wood in attendance. The rest of the clothes were washed on a later date at the ABS-CBN compound in Mandaue City.

Malu Estaris, general manager of Electrolux, said the event was one of the more pleasant and stress-free projects they had embarked on. “It was so easy to arrange the logistics.  The people at Metro Ayala were very supportive and the representatives of ABS-CBN are very passionate about this,” she said.

While others wondered whether a world record in washing clothes was broken that day, a few spectators at the event were intrigued to witness their elegant First Lady “do the laundry” in such a public place. However, they were disappointed to see that all it took was to press a single button of the modern Electrolux machines to get the chore done.

If this event didn’t make the Guinness Book of World Records, it at least showed that washing clothes can also be a glamorous, and worthwhile activity.