Bringing Loads of Change to the Rez

Imagine waking up before dawn and walking out to your car, if you have one, on a cold morning. You’ve loaded it with your family’s laundry the night before and are settling in for an hour long drive to the laundromat. You hope you have enough detergent to get by but might have to scrounge up change to buy more. The laundromat is out of your way, but you want to get started as soon as possible and hopefully beat the rush of others at the laundromat. If the timing is right you might be able to turn around and head home after 3 hours of work but that’s the best-case scenario. With stops for gas and breaks, you’ll have spent about a full day of work doing your family’s laundry. You pray you have enough cash, the change machine doesn’t break, and your car makes it roundtrip.

This scenario isn’t just a fantasy. It’s the reality for the residents of Pine Ridge Reservation, many of whom spend a whole day just doing the family laundry because there aren’t adequate laundry facilities or even appliance repair services on the reservation.

Currently, the only commercial laundromat on the Reservation is a small one in Oglala, in the far west of the Reservation, which is approximately the size of Connecticut. For those with their own washing machines and dryers, no nearby appliance companies exist to service them on the Reservation. If a family needs a repair they must load the machine onto a truck and take it to Rapid City. For those families that do not have a washing machine or dryer, they have to drive 100 miles or more to laundromats outside the Reservation. This process can take quite a bit of travel time, causes additional wear and tear on their vehicles, and uses a lot of costly gasoline. Traveling to laundromats is logistically difficult and expensive at the best of times and, at the worst of times, impractical due to weather or time constraints.

That’s where we’re hoping to make a difference by creating good jobs and self-sustaining businesses while simultaneously helping people to save money and time.

One Spirit, our donors, and the Community Development Corporations are working together to open laundromats on the reservation. These facilities will save the Lakota people time, money, and stress by enabling them to do laundry closer to home. The CDCs have provided three buildings to house laundry facilities across Pine Ridge Reservation. These facilities will be located in the Red Cloud Community Building, Okini Market Facility, and the Phayabaya Compound in the Wakpamni District. Thanks to a generous donation from one of our donors, we have 30 sets of commercial washing machines and dryers. The CDCs have provided suitable buildings and committed $125,000 to upgrade these structures. These funds will cover some of the costs to make necessary updates to the facilities, including upgrades to accommodate the water and sewage needs of the many washing machines. One Spirit has bids for each facility to receive necessary upgrades such as drywall, paint, flooring, doors, and gravel for parking lots. Each facility will include 10 washing machines and 10 dryers and require the plumbing, drainage, and electrical work to accommodate.

Beyond filling a crucial need for laundry services on the Reservation, this project will create self-sustaining businesses that will create jobs and have other, permanent community benefits.

We project that each of the laundromats will employ two attendants and a security guard; bringing up to nine jobs to the Reservation, where unemployment is high and harmful. Furthermore, profits from the laundromats will support youth programming on the Reservation. Additionally, One Spirit is working to create a program that trains people to repair and maintain these machines as their own personal business; fulfilling a service need for residents and adding even more good jobs to the Reservation.

While we are getting close to beginning this project, we need your help to start renovating these buildings and taking the first steps toward opening the facilities. An additional $20,000 is necessary to complete installation and open the first laundromat. We also estimate that each laundromat will require $20,000 in startup capital until they can become financially self-sustaining. Please support One Spirit’s plans to help provide laundry services and jobs to those on the Pine Ridge Reservation with a donation to One Spirit.