Combining laundry time and storytime is not a new concept, but the Laundry and Literacy Coalition — a recent partnership between the LaundryCares Foundation, Libraries Without Borders and the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail initiative — is taking it a step further, piloting a project to install literacy spaces for kids under 6 years of age in 600 laundromats by 2020. It’s a joint effort to make early literacy programs available to underserved communities via laundromats nationwide.
Laundromats provide a captive audience for the time it takes to wash, dry and fold clothes, typically at least two hours, Libraries Without Borders Executive Director Adam Echelman told American Libraries magazine. Beyond that, families typically do laundry on a weekly basis. So while parents pour detergent and fold soccer uniforms, their kids have an opportunity to work on their reading skills. Participating laundromats can provide children with services like librarian-helmed reading stations, educational computer games, puzzles and sing-alongs — all free for families. The Laundry and Literacy Coalition is also building a network of nonprofit organizations, academics, foundations, corporations and laundromat owners to help scale strategies and advance research around early literacy in laundromats.
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