Nick Sundberg cuts the ribbon at the Loads of Love launch event. (Courtesy Redskins Charitable Foundation)

The idea started on Nick Sundberg’s living room couch. His wife, Flor, had come across an article about school districts in Missouri and California that partnered with an appliance maker to install washers and dryers inside schools. Kids could bring in dirty clothes, volunteers would clean them, and one potential excuse for absenteeism would wash away.

Sundberg, Washington’s long snapper since 2010, has long been one of the Redskins most eager to volunteer for community service events, and the rise in player activism had him “trying to find out ways to help in our own community, how to get out there and try to make a difference.” So as he and his wife talked over that story — and its conclusion that attendance rates had been boosted in the schools with laundry programs — the idea felt like a no-brainer.

“If this giant problem is solvable by adding a washer and dryer to the equation, then we’re failing,” Sundberg said. “So I just figured, why not have our charitable relations department look at it and see if it’s even feasible?”

More than a year after that initial conversation, Sundberg and the team launched Loads of Love, their own version of this program, seeded with a $25,000 donation from the long snapper himself. They’ve installed washers and dryers in three local schools and two local youth shelters. He has advertised the cause on his cleats, solicited donations from fans and teammates, and promoted the grant process that will allow other local schools to apply for similar help. And with a program born on a living room couch now up and running, the Redskins this week announced Sundberg’s nomination for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award.

That honor figures to go to Houston’s J.J. Watt, one of the league’s biggest stars, whose viral hurricane relief efforts already helped land him a share of Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year award. Sundberg’s work is being done at a different scale, and it won’t land him on the cover of SI. He’s still a long snapper and all. But he already talks about this program as one of his potential legacies in Washington.

“What’s fascinating is that, if you’re a long snapper, nobody should know your name, because that means you’re doing your job,” said Redskins Charitable Foundation executive director Jane Rodgers, who had never had a player suggest an entirely new initiative. “Nick is a very unique individual. He’s really thoughtful; he’s always looking for ways to do the right thing. And when he came to us with this idea, we were all really floored.”

Sundberg doesn’t have his own foundation, which is why he brought the concept to the Redskins foundation and asked for help. The team reached out to Whirlpool, but a new partnership wasn’t possible. So the foundation started the process itself: finding schools in Prince George’s County with a need for washers and dryers, figuring out the electrical and plumbing logistics, providing laundry bags and supplies, working out implementation plans for these new laundry centers.

The name — LOL — was chosen for its playful connotation, so kids wouldn’t feel embarrassed to participate. The launch took more than a year from the time the Sundbergs came up with the idea, and it cost far more than Sundberg’s initial gift. The couple said the program realistically needs to produce five years of attendance and academic data before they can come to any conclusion about its effectiveness, but their enthusiasm hasn’t changed.

“Having numbers and being able to back this kind of program with numbers is what’s going to make other people want to implement programs like this,” said Flor Sundberg, an attorney who has also worked on the project. “That’s what I’m most excited about. I’m most excited to see what happens after it’s implemented: how much use it’s getting, what kind of impact it’s having, if kids are going to school more, if their grades are higher, if their self-esteem is going up. That’s really what’s going to take a program like this to greater heights.”


Nick Sundberg on the day he launched his Loads of Love program. (Courtesy Redskins Charitable Foundation)

But her husband is already trying to raise more funds, and he imagines the team’s foundation acting as an information clearinghouse for schools around the country with similar needs. The plumbing, electrical work, supplies and appliances cost about $10,000 at each location, but the planning and execution were the biggest hurdles. And while the team’s foundation wants to fund a few schools every year in this market through a grant program, Sundberg’s ambition goes beyond that.

“This isn’t a region-specific problem; it isn’t just kids in this area that have a need,” he said. “I don’t want this to be a program that only I can help implement at a school, or that only the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation can. If you find a school that has a need, man, call us. We’ll give you the blueprint and tell you what we did right and what we did wrong.”

This isn’t the only reason Sundberg earned the team’s Man of the Year nomination; he also has been one of the most active participants in the foundation’s many other programs. And he came up with the concept long before the civic ventures of NFL players became something of a national obsession. Still, while he talks about his own effort, he isn’t shy about defending his colleagues.

“We all make way too much money; it’s not just the guys at the top. If you can use your platform to do something good, you have to,” Sundberg said. “Do some research and actually look and see how many guys in the NFL are out in the community, trying to make their cities better places, and it would blow your mind. People are going to generalize about us, just like every occupation gets generalized. I try not to look at it from that standpoint. But if we can put a positive spin on this situation…”

No pun intended. Anyhow, look back at the Man of the Year winners, and you’ll see a collection of superstars: Larry Fitzgerald, Eli Manning, Anquan Boldin, Thomas Davis, Charles Tillman, Jason Witten, Kurt Warner, Jason Taylor, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and so on. Not a lot of long snappers on that list. But for Rodgers, “this was something that kind of put [Sundberg] over the top, because it had such a long lasting impact.”

“This is up and running, it’s happening, and it’s just an idea we came up with on our couch,” Flor Sundberg said. “I’m so excited that he’s getting such a big recognition, that the team is behind him like this and that they’re excited about the work that he’s doing. And I’m very proud.”

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