Though it may seem like a fairly basic commodity, some of these high school students don’t have proper access to laundry machines.
That’s why East High School in Utah has just installed washing machines, dryers, and lockers for their homeless students.
According to KSL, the school plays host to 80 homeless students out of 2,000. Some of these students are caregivers residing in the local homeless shelter—others rely simply on couch surfing, staying at friend’s houses, or just sleeping in the streets.
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Additionally, there are plenty of students whose families are simply too dysfunctional to do laundry.
The school’s family support specialist Kris Barta told KSL: “We are totally ready to open and I have a few kids who are totally ready for it to open, who have told me, ‘I am not homeless, but my family doesn’t put a priority on this or they are neglectful at home, so I am excited for the locker room/shower room to open up so I can do some laundry.’”
The Leopard Laundry room—as it is currently being called because of their mascot being a leopard—will also be equipped with donated shampoo, conditioner, detergent, towels, and free clothing for the taking.
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School representatives say that if they want their students to succeed, their basic physical needs should be met—and they’re willing to help in every way that they can.
“They have too much on their plate to be successful students. So if we take some of that off by making sure they have food and clean, appropriate clothes to wear, maybe they can focus on their academic goals or what they want to do in their life, but most importantly stay in and finish high school,” Barta said.
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Homeless high school students? I had no idea there were many homeless high school students, and in Utah of all places — not a state with a high population of people to begin with. Sad situation. I’m glad the homeless kids have a placed to do laundry, but I hope they understand whatever Asian language is printed on the buttons for that washing machine. Operation of the machine looks somewhat complicated even if the buttons were printed in English.