Clean Clothes Changed a School: Why Something as Simple as Laundry Can Change a Life

Sometimes changing someone’s life doesn’t require an enormous program. Sometimes it starts with a washing machine.

At West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, Principal Akbar Cook discovered something heartbreaking behind some of his students’ absences. They weren’t simply skipping school. Some students were staying home because they didn’t have clean clothes — and other students were bullying them because of it.

CBS News reported that Cook learned some students were missing three to five days of school each month. The school ultimately secured a $20,000 grant from PSE&G to help transform an old football locker room into a free laundry facility for students.

Five commercial-grade washers and five dryers eventually gave students something many of us rarely stop to think about: the dignity of clean clothes.

And something remarkable happened. According to Cook, daily attendance increased by approximately 10 percent after the laundry room opened.

Think about what that means.

The barrier keeping some children from their education wasn’t intelligence. It wasn’t ambition. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about school. It was laundry.

A basic human need had become a barrier between a child and the classroom. And when someone finally stopped asking, “Why aren’t these kids coming to school?” and started asking, “What do these kids need in order to come?” — things changed.

This Is Why Held by Love Created Love Loads

Here in Northwest Georgia, Held by Love is building Love Loads around the same fundamental belief: No person should have to choose between clean clothes and another basic necessity.

For a family struggling financially, someone experiencing homelessness, a parent trying to stretch the last few dollars until payday, or a child whose family doesn’t have reliable laundry access, the cost of washing clothes can become one more impossible expense.

But laundry isn’t merely about clothing.

Clean clothes can mean walking into school without embarrassment. They can mean walking into a job interview with confidence. They can mean showing up for work. They can mean a child isn’t singled out by classmates. They can mean dignity.

And sometimes removing one seemingly small barrier creates consequences far larger than anyone imagined.

Principal Akbar Cook and West Side High School demonstrated that beautifully. They didn’t solve every problem their students faced. They found one barrier they could remove — and removed it.

That’s community care. That’s practical compassion. And that’s exactly the kind of thinking we want Love Loads to bring to Northwest Georgia.

Love Looks Like This

Held by Love believes compassion becomes most powerful when it becomes practical.

Feed someone. Help someone obtain identification. Give someone transportation. Wash someone’s clothes. Meet the need standing directly in front of you.

Because sometimes the distance between struggling and moving forward isn’t nearly as large as we imagine. Sometimes it’s one load of laundry.

Love Loads is Held by Love’s effort to make sure that one load is there when someone needs it.

Held by Love — because dignity should never be a luxury.

Sources

CBS News / CBS New York reporting on West Side High School’s student laundry program, and Newark Public Schools’ follow-up reporting on the program and attendance impact.