Laundry Room

The Laundry Room is an initiative to help families living in poverty have clean clothes and bedding along with teaching youth life skills such as the proper way to do laundry, how often they should be doing laundry and that other items within the home need to be washed regularly such as bedding. The typical individual or family utilizing The Laundry Room is often living in a low-income apartment/rental, a vehicle, or maybe even homeless. Through this program we seek to nurture the health, hygiene, economic and relational well-being of marginalized families.

For those living below the poverty line, washing clothes presents both a logistical problem and a financial hardship. In a single parent home with two children, it costs approximately $600 per year to launder clothes and bedding. Having clean clothes is an expensive endeavor. There are the frustrations faced by any parent who has tried to entertain their children in a laundromat for two hours. Finally, food stamps do not pay for laundry detergent. When a mother knows that she has $17 to last until the end of the month, does she spend the money on food or laundry detergent? This is a difficult situation.

There is a tremendous trickledown effect stemming from lack of clean clothing that ultimately affects a child’s education. We all know that children can be very honest. They will single out children who do not have clean clothes, new shoes, or who are dirty. That hurts their feelings and affects their ability to really concentrate on learning. Children with poor hygiene become social outcasts, which affects their self-esteem, and their desire to even come to school.

By providing washers and dryers, detergent, and childcare in The Laundry Room, we can help relieve one fiscal weight for those who struggle daily to make ends meet, thus allowing our guests to redirect their finances to food, medical care, school supplies, etc. Providing the means to clean clothes is merely one thing we can do to help those living in poverty in our community. It is a way to get to know those in our community face-to-face who live in oppressive poverty. It is a way to remain connected to human beings in our community who are so often overlooked. It is one way we can offer tangible and transformative relief.