The Clear Path Project: Volunteers clear clutter for free for overwhelmed Whidbey Island residents

The Clear Path Project, a free home organization and deep-cleaning service that eliminates overwhelming clutter, formed about a year ago on Whidbey Island, when Kieya Marshall, owner of the cleaning and organizing business Minimizr, began offering her services free to one person a month.

Shannon Jansen, owner of Practically Magic Cleaning Services, joined roughly six months later, and the group has since grown to include a behavioral analyst, Sierra Nolan, and a videographer, Gabrielle Barboza, who documents each project. The group now takes on a home roughly every two months, working through an application process that asks for photos, household details, and information about health or safety concerns to determine who needs help most urgently.

Marshall and Jansen joined “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio to talk about the project.

“I’ve been in the cleaning industry for more than 10 years, and during that time, I’ve just noticed a lot of people who truly need extra help in their homes may not be able to afford it,” Marshall said. “Last year, I just decided every month or so to give back in just a few hours here and there and help those people in need. Then about six months ago, Shannon reached out to me and said, ‘I want to join you.’ I was so blown away.”

Jansen, who already runs her own cleaning business, said she wanted to put her existing volunteer time toward something larger.

“There’s so many people in the community that actually need help, and they don’t have the resources and feel alone, so to be able to give our community more hands and more help, it just seemed like the right thing to do,” Jansen said. “I was already volunteering my own time, so coming together with a professional organizer and somebody who’s got such a big heart, I just wanted to help her help our community grow.”

Marshall said the group doesn’t set out to judge whether someone is simply busy or genuinely in crisis, distinguishing instead between everyday clutter and homes where basic function has broken down.

“I wouldn’t necessarily just say people are messy. Everybody has their own ideas of cleanliness and life happening,” Marshall said. “What I would consider you desperately need help is you can’t walk through your home, you can’t get to certain areas that you need to have accessible. In one home, we literally cleared a path so they could move around in their home. That was the only thing we were able to do, and they were just so grateful for that.”

One project that stood out to both women involved a single mother grieving the loss of both her parents.

“To be able to give her a sense of a peaceful place to lay her head at night, so she could continue to grieve and find herself through the process, was the one that touched us the most,” Jansen said.

During another recent project, a volunteer noticed the condition of a family’s beds and bought two replacements herself.

“We give back as much as we can, but that blew our minds,” Marshall said. “We just ask for her to help sweep the garage, and she goes out and buys a queen bed and a full bed for their kiddo, and it was amazing.”

Jansen, a professional organizer by trade, said her advice for anyone feeling overwhelmed by their own clutter is to start small and involve someone else in the process.

“Just start in a small drawer, start in a small room, start with one type of item,” Jansen said. “Ask a friend, ask a family member. I know it’s hard; it can be embarrassing, overwhelming, but having someone there with you really makes the process a lot easier.”

Marshall said deciding what to keep is often less about logic than emotional attachment, which is why the group avoids working with anyone who isn’t ready for help.

“We never take people on if they’re not willing and ready for our services,” Marshall said. “We’re not here to fight you or try to change who you are. We’re here to help you, and if you’re not ready for help, that’s okay.”

You can find The Clear Path Project on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and its project documentation on YouTube.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.