Providing something as basic as dignity that comes with the ability to wear clean clothes was accomplished through something as mundane as a washing machine.
The Cascade
It’s an unfortunate fact that one in five children in America do not have clean clothes to put on for school in the morning. Studies have documented that the even more unfortunate solution to that problem is that they simply skip school. The unfortunate consequence of that is chronic absenteeism, which is directly related to a high dropout rate.
It’s absolutely staggering that MORE than 4,000 students drop out of school every day. And when our kids drop out of school they then have a 40% higher rate of being unemployed and will have a 70% higher rate of going on government assistance. And sadly, they are eight times more likely to end up in our prisons.
Identifying the Problem
It was Dr. Melody Gunn, a former principal at Gibson Elementary in St. Louis, who noticed that despite the fact that the school was providing all its students a free or reduced-priced lunch program along with transportation to and from school, attendance rates were plummeting.
Dr. Gunn took the time to talk with the parents of her students and learned that too often her students didn't have clean clothes to wear as result of the lack of reliable access to laundry. Either they weren’t able to afford the cost of the laundromat or squeeze in the time to get there while holding down their jobs. And while some families did have washing machines, too often their electricity had been shut off – or their families couldn’t afford detergent while dealing with the more urgent needs of food, medicines and rent.
The Solution
Dr. Gunn took it upon herself to approach Whirlpool and asked if they would donate a washer and dryer to her school. Whirlpool got interested in the issue she detailed, decided to do its own research, and they were the ones who found that one in five students in the United States did not have clean clothes to wear to school.
So the good people at Whirlpool created the Whirlpool Care Counts Program and began by donating seventeen pairs of washers and dryers to low-income school districts in St. Louis and in Fairfield, California. The participating schools then invited kids they had identified with attendance problems to bring in their laundry to be cleaned while they were in class.
The Impact
And the results were not only stunning, but they were immediate! Dr. Gunn reported that, “After just one month, we saw an impact.” And the long-term results of the program have been remarkable. In just the first year they observed over 90 percent of tracked-students had increased their attendance, with those most in need of the service averaging an increase of almost 2 weeks.
Additionally, teachers surveyed reported that 95 percent of participants showed a higher degree of motivation in their classes combined with an increase in participation in extra-curricular activities.
This data supports research documenting that chronic absenteeism isn’t because of kids’ lack of smarts or motivation, but is largely due to coming from a low-income household with all its attendant obstacles and drawbacks.
Wisely, Whirlpool leaves it up to each district to decide how to manage the laundry programs. For St. Louis’ Gibson Elementary, Gunn says that parent volunteers managed and maintained the laundry program.
For this school year, Whirlpool has expanded the program to five new school districts across the country. And Whirlpool says it will expand the program next year to at least 20 additional schools, including one in Baltimore and one in Nashville. Not surprisingly, given the positive impact, over 300 schools have asked to be included in the program!
Sometimes a problem so pressing (no pun intended) can be solved by something so simple as clean clothes.
(And given TomCat’s repeated sharing of his absolute LOVE of this chore, I’m sure he’ll be looking to volunteer when the program comes to Portland.)
RESOURCES
You may well ask why am I putting the Fox Business link as the very first one on the list below.
Well, for two very good reasons. First it was a solid piece of reporting that was well-written.
Second, you really need to read the Comments!
If there was ever any doubt that Fox attracts a bunch of [bad word] idiots to watch their [very bad word]-up programs, the Comments by these Mother-[very bad word] [bad word] will remove all doubts.
They can all go stick a [bad word] up their [very bad word] [bad word] as far as I’m concerned.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/08/02/whirlpool-tackles-laundry-epidemic-hitting-families.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/25/1563807/-St-Louis-school-sees-90-of-their-students-attendance-increase-because-of-washing-machines
http://www.alternet.org/education/whirlpool-care-counts-program-proves-one-small-incentive-can-keep-kids-school
http://bients.com/whirlpool-put-laundry-machines-schools-increased-attendance-90/
http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/chronicabsenteeism/index.html
https://carecounts.whirlpool.com/
9 Responses to “Friday Fun: Can One Solution Be As Simple As a Washing Machine?”
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Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4007287
My Windows 7 'puter thinks my eyes are too delicate to read the comments, but my Windows 8 'puter showed them. When you described the comments, I suspected I could pretty well predict them, and when I could finally see them – yeah, I could have. Not word for word. For one thing, I'm hooked on correct spelling (not that my fingers always demonstrate that.) But the ideology: "Anyone who has any kind of difficulty, it's their own damn' fault, and what we need to do to get them to act responsible is to punish them more, and increase the punishment with every new difficulty." The old, old song. Sigh.
Thanks Nameless. I can attest to the fact that getting a shower and hav ing clean clothes to put on improves my attitude immensely.
I almost posted this yesterday, glad to see that you did, Joanne.
This is such a bright and innovative idea, and Kudos to Principal Gibson, and her teachers/staff, who went and got this done. It's a wonderful concept, and I hope that more schools pick up on this as well. As a person who's 'been there, done that', I can understand how the students feel/felt.
Our future Generation needs all the help they can get, educationally, as well as emotionally and physically. Caring about our kids.
For the naysayers who commented negatively on this plan, go get involved in your local schools, join PTA, volunteer, or substitute, and put yourself in their worn shoes. Better yet, sign up for a field trip (like one school where I worked at, (yearly), get on the school bus, and see where they live, and meet the parents who struggle every single day. I did, and believe me, you'll find out what their lives are all about. Show compassion for these students, their family and parents. I help every year, and it's rewarding to see the smiles on their faces, and in knowing that they are being taken care of.
Thank you, Joanne for this great post.
OOPS….Sorry.
Thank you, Nameless for Post, and Joanne for cross posting.
As someone who suffers from chronic depression, I know that self care including bathing and laundry, can feel like it's impossible to do. But when it does get done, even though it is an effort, there is a sense of accomplishment that can't be beat! (I won't go into what it meant to me many years ago when I actually cleaned the toilet. I laugh now thinking about it.) Not having clean clothes not only affects school attendance, but also affects social interactions and feelings of self worth and confidence.
Kudos to Dr Melody Gunn who actively listened and searched for a simple yet novel solution to a big problem.
Thanks for another inspiring story, Nameless, and thanks for posting it, Joanne.
After providing free lunches and transportation, but not getting attendance rates to what they were supposed to be, it would have been all to easy to put the failure to attend down as truancy due to lack of motivation or plain laziness, but Dr. Melody Gunn thought outside this prejudiced box and soon realized that there was underlying problem that may have been obvious, but was not attended to. She did not only identify the problem, she also undertook steps to solve it by asking Whirlpool for help. And Whirlpool jumped in. So kudos to Dr. Gunn and the good people of Whirlpool. School attendance has soared, parents have become involved in the laundry program and, as Lynn has pointed out so well, kids' social interactions and feelings of self worth and confidence have been boosted. A great success.
Thanks to Nameless for this excellent post, and to JOanne for cross posting it. I am sharing it with my friends. How very sad that kids can't go to school because they don't have clean clothes. Everytime I hear a comment about "lazy poor" I either cringe or get mad. I worked with too many people who were trapped in low income jobs and could barely pay their rent to believe this. Compassion is fast becoming a lost emotion in this country.
I'm not going to look at the FOXNEWS piece, as I am sure that the philosophy entaied in "Anyone who has any kind of difficulty, it's their own damn' fault, and what we need to do to get them to act responsible is to punish them more, and increase the punishment with every new difficulty," (thank you Joanne) is rampant in the commentary to be found there. I expect that someone is going to call this effort by Whirlpool the first real step to communism in this century.
Little minded people care incapable of recognizing the links between cultural situations, if you will, and people's responses to them. They see it all as a black, or white, Ayn Randian, "Pull up your bootstraps!" issue, unable to see that the bootstraps have been cut by the "haves" in the culture. I've been focused on this Ralph waldo Emerson quote, of late, which seems so pertinent to so much: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." These folks have little minds, and come up with the same imbecilic "fixes" )as in "A good whoopin' is what they need!")time and again.