Whirlpool (the appliance manufacturer) donated washers and driers to schools and increased attendance.
According to Whirlpool's research, one in five school children report difficulty finding clean clothes to wear to school. It turns out that offering free in-school laundry services to kids with attendance problems increases their attendance.
When compared to factors like economic opportunity, unemployment, and institutional racism, laundry seems pretty inconsequential in the fight to keep kids in school. But while that might be the case for their parents, for a ten-year-old who already has the odds stacked against them, having nothing clean to wear to school could be the deciding factor in whether or not they want to face their classmates that day.
I can remember my grandmother telling me that she thought lunches in schools were a wonderful innovation, because they didn't have anything like that when she was a girl, and many children couldn't come because they wouldn't have lunch. I'm sure back then nobody thought of lunch as something school should provide. Now apparently laundry is the next big innovation.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:23AM
That has to be one of the most bizarre, rambling, barely on-topic posts I've ever read on SN, and that's saying something. VLM have you been drinking fabric conditioner again?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday August 19 2016, @12:13PM
I was pretty sleepy.... Sometimes my most interesting posts (if not most logical) are written in a complete haze.
There was / is a fad in old fashioned lit departments about authors getting drunk/high therefore they produce important lit Kerouac because lack of normal self control increases creativity etc and I'll stand by the idea that being so sleepy I can barely hit the "submit" button is, um, literature, yeah thats it.