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Cleaning Association Brings Cancer Nonprofit Under Its Wing

The global cleaning industry association ISSA announces that it has merged with Cleaning for a Reason, a charity that offers cleaning services to women fighting cancer. The nonprofit hopes to expand its mission with the support of ISSA's foundation.

It’s a simple idea: offering cleaning services to a person in need, no questions asked.

It’s also the spark behind Cleaning for a Reason, a Texas nonprofit that works to help women fighting cancer so they have one less thing to worry about. The nonprofit has gained attention over the years from a variety of sources, most famously Oprah:

The organization has always had the support of ISSA, the worldwide cleaning industry association, but with a merger that’s being referred to as an “adoption,” the nonprofit will now be directly associated with ISSA’s charitable foundation. And that means it can expand its reach nationally—and even globally.

“ISSA has supported us since the organization’s inception, and it just makes sense for Cleaning for a Reason and ISSA to work together,” the nonprofit’s president and founder, Debbie Sardone, said in a news release. “For more than a decade, we’ve been approached by people from different countries, asking if we can expand to other territories. The good news is, now we can.”

The benefits of the service are not lost on people like Karen Hegedus, a Pennsylvania woman who received a deep cleaning of her home through the program earlier this year, not long after being diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. The hard part, she admits, was the ask.

“It’s hard for women to ask for help—we’re always the caregivers. It’s really hard to sit back and ask,” she told The Phoenix Reporter & Item. “I would encourage them to ask for help—to look for organizations. There are a lot of organizations out there looking to help. Cleaning for a Reason takes one of the daily things and makes it easier for you.”

Stories like these helped encourage ISSA to embrace a deeper role with the organization, noted the association’s executive director, John Barrett.

“I can’t think of a more worthy cause or better fit for ISSA than Cleaning for a Reason,” Barrett said in the release. “We can’t remove a woman’s cancer, but we can wipe away one of her worries.”

ISSA isn’t the only association that has supported the nonprofit. The American Cleaning Institute has frequently raised money for the group, including $50,000 at a charity event earlier this year.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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