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WEST VALLEY CITY — A West Valley laundromat partnered with Current Initiatives, a nonprofit, in order to provide free laundry service and products to community members on Wednesday.
Current Initiatives' Laundry Project has appeared in 20 states across the nation, with the latest on Wednesday at Laundry King in West Valley City. Amid the rise of the cost of detergent and other household staples, the Laundry Project is meant to lighten the financial load for low-income community members.
"What we do is work with laundromats and kind of take over the laundromat for a few hours, and we turn it into a community center of hope for a few hours. So when a customer comes in the door, everything's free for them for the next few hours. They don't have to pay the laundry fees they have; we have soap that they can use," said Jason Sowell, Current Initiatives founder. "We're here to alleviate that financial burden that comes with using a laundromat and give them a little bit of hope with something as simple as clean laundry."
The project began 15 years ago after Sowell ran into a family at his local laundromat while helping a friend who was homeless at the time get some laundry done.
"While I was (at) that laundromat, ended up talking to a family and just observing them and hearing their story of exactly what I said earlier. 'We're not buying groceries this week so that we can wash her clothes.' And that was heartbreaking to me," said Sowell. "It's how we got into laundry and discovered laundry, for a lot of people, being a luxury rather than a regularity, and so we want to take it out of the luxury category for most people and make it a regular occurrence for people."
The encounter prompted the creation of Current Initiatives and its Laundry Project, which has now contributed to 2,859,780 pounds of laundry being cleaned since 2008. A total of 152 laundromats have partnered with the initiative to wash nearly 285,978 loads of laundry for 27,670 families in 1,039 laundry service projects.
"Laundry affects every part of our life, but it also affects our mental health. A lot of kids going to school without clean clothes are being picked on. We tell kids all the time they can be anything they want to be when they grow up, they get an education, and they make good choices. How do we expect a kid to believe that when they're embarrassed to go to school because they don't have clean clothes, they can't even focus on their studies? And that, for me, is not a hope-filled future for anyone," added Sowell.
Wednesday's event allowed families or individuals to cut costs in a way that can add up at the end of the month.
"Coming to the laundromat is expensive to pay for, especially when you have kids, and the laundry begins to pile up," said Kaylan Nickell, a mother of two. "This takes a load off of us."
Volunteers were also present during the event to help with laundry service and other needs. Volunteers were provided by Bill.com, which partnered with the nonprofit for the day.
"When we think about like helping our immediate community, we think about like things like food, and we think about maybe helping by paying certain bills or whatever, and they're all equally valid. But I think free laundry is ... having your clothes washed and taken care of like truly brings back a lot of dignity to a person," said Advika Mukherjee, a volunteer. "As someone that had to use a laundromat, like a couple of years back, it's very near and dear to me."
