Linens N Love Charity Founders Graduate To Next Chapter In OC

PLACENTIA, CA — Vivian Wang is on her way to Stanford after graduating from Valencia High School, but not until she has left her mark on Orange County. Together with her sister May Wang, and a group of like-minded teens, they are running www.LinensNLove.org, an effort to gather linens that fail to meet hotel-chain standards and share them with those who support the neediest in Orange County. Since 2014, their group has donated over 20,000 pieces of linen to area homeless shelters, animal shelters, teen outreach centers, and veterans in need. Still, there is much more work to be done.

Both Vivian and May Wang grew up watching their parents work in the hotel industry. Their father managed an Anaheim hotel near Disneyland, Vivian Wang tells Patch.

In their youth, they created hotel-sheet forts from the discarded linen pile. They would daydream underneath their creations while their parents worked, May Wang says. As they grew up, she learned that the sheets her parents gave her to play with would be discarded due to failure to meet strict standards. An ink stain, coffee stain, or tear would make them unusable for hotel guests. The service-minded teens traded childhood games for a real-world community-building effort: how to keep the linens out of the landfills and distribute to those who needed them.

The nonprofit organization now takes donations of gently-used hotel linens to provide shelter residents a sense of warmth and comfort.

The leaders at Linens N Love remain passionate about their work and emphasizes to their recipients that each linen package comes with a sense of love, compassion and care, according to Vivian Wang.

So far, they have donated well over 20,000 pieces of linen to organizations such as HIS House in Placentia, Irvine Animal Care Center in Irvine, Mercy House in Placentia, with new outreach opportunities sought monthly.

According to their website, the group's 500 student volunteers worldwide are all seeking a shared purpose: to take something that would otherwise be discarded and make it new for those in need.

Irvine Animal Care Center spokesperson Amir Dorosti discussed how the Linens N Love donations help the animals in their care.

"The center's need for fresh towels and sheets is huge. We have animals in our care who are sick and often we have to discard towels after one use," Dorosti said in a recent interview. "The donations make a huge difference in the care that we can provide."

Linen donations come from Courtyard by Mariott, Renaissance Hotels, Embassy Suites, and more. The group recently received a grant from T-Mobile's Changemaker Challenge, giving them $5,000 in seed funding and a three-day trip to T-Mobile's Washington headquarters.

"We began with just two sisters and then we decided to form the Orange County Linens N Love Chapter once our organization began to expand," Vivian Wang said. "Soon enough, we found ourselves creating the Southern California Chapter and then eventually creating nearly 40 community-based chapters in new areas such as San Jose, Irvine, Anaheim, Yorba Linda, Placentia, New York City, Houston, and even Singapore!"

She attributes their success and rapid growth to her upbringing. "The Orange County neighborhoods have always emphasized inclusion and service," she says.

With one foot toward college, Vivian Wang looks to the future of their program. Many younger volunteers will keep their chapters of Linens N Love going in Orange County and worldwide in her absence.

"I want to ensure that our team's momentum does not fade away, so now I'm thinking about how we can continue our nonprofit even while I'm at Stanford," she said. With that in mind, she is developing an advisory board so that the veteran youth leaders can stay involved even while away at Stanford. Vivian Wang plans on majoring in Computer Science or Symbolic Systems, a major unique to the esteemed university.

"I see myself bringing my nonprofit with me to college and seeing how I can leverage technology as a catalyst for positive social impact," she said.

The changes in her own life encourage her to grow the organization and think of how Linens N Love can impact the world on a larger scale.

They are seeking more hotel partners, youth volunteers, and shelters interested in joining their global network—email president@linensnlove.org for further details.

Those interested in lending a helping hand can access their PayPal Giving Fund donation page here; donations are always welcome and they help fuel the organization.

Visit www.LinensNLove.org to learn more.