By Janine Edwards
With the help of a Carleton-based funding program, the Centretown Laundry Cooperative is helping low-income residents make money by washing other people’s laundry.
The Community Economic Development Technical Assistance Program (CEDTAP), which offers grants to community-based organizations, helped the laundry co-op devise this strategy.
Kirsty Pazek, communications consultant for CEDTAP says, “We’re committed to looking at an organization that’s done a lot of good work in the community.”
Karen Hill, task force coordinator for the laundry co-op, says the new project gives members who live on little or no income “an opportunity to give back to society” by offering laundry services to Ottawa businesses at market rates.
She says both the co-op and its new business development strategy are built on the philosophy that every individual has something to offer. “Everybody has gifts and talents and abilities and dreams,” she explains. “We focus on their strengths. We don’t focus on their problems.”
Hill says the economic development project allows participating members to make about six dollars for every load of laundry they wash.
“It may not seem like much to us,” explains Hill. “But when you live on a very low income, six bucks can really mean a lot.
It can actually mean being able to buy toothpaste or a candy bar. Things that many of us take for granted.”
David Guitard is one of the co-op’s 500 members and is currently working on the pilot project to earn some extra money. Guitard is hearing impaired and says he has had trouble finding regular work to supplement the small amount of disability support he receives. He says he finds support from the co-op through the pilot project.
Not only does he find financial help, he says the co-op provides him with “good counsellors, employment-hunting helpers, and free snacks.” By the time the project ends in six months, Hill hopes to have half of the co-op’s laundry machines spinning the project forward.
At that time, she says they will decide what will happen next, and will do whatever it takes to continue developing the community through member development. “We just want to give them the chance to become a part of their community,” she says.
CEDTAP has provided support to over 200 community organizations nationwide.