On their wall it says positively connecting communities.
Orange Sky Laundry, is the world’s first free mobile laundry service for the homeless.
Founded in 2014 in a Brisbane garage, it started as a really crazy idea to chuck two washers in a van and provide a free laundry service for the homeless. The 2 boys wanted to improve hygiene standards and restore dignity for the people. Clean clothes make all of us feel better, but the real impact happens on the six orange chairs through all the hours of genuine and non-judgemental conversation. This builds the Orange Sky community that is made up of people who positively connect with the “friends”. In Australia 116,000 people are experiencing homelessness, that’s 1 in 200!
Orange Sky operates 232 shifts from 27 vehicles in 22 cities every week around Australia. To date, they provided 95,000 loads of washing, that’s 870.000 kilos, 8,000 safe and hot showers and most importantly, 160,000 hours of great conversation.
The newer vans are hybrid, which includes the addition of shower services. Also Orange Sky has custom-built vehicles with two washing machines and three dryers were fitted to an ex-defence truck to provide services to indigenous communities in rural area’s. Even the vans got names, so the one it all started with is called Sudsy and there is one named Tubbsy, named after David Tubb.
We also talked to David, he is the Chief Innovation Officer of Orange Sky. He showed us the technology that drives Orange Sky and the smart way it allows them to track the number of washes, showers and hours of conversation we provide for our friends in realtime. They won $1 million from the Google Impact Challenge to improve and grow their software and prepare it for the entire sector with over 3.000 service providers. When they scale the technology it can make a massive difference for mobile outreach services.
At Orange Sky they also work on other projects like employment opportunity which called Social impact washing and disaster relief where they help during natural disasters.
A great example how we can work of Global goals and leave no-one behind.
Watch out for Orange Sky since they are moving into other countries, now in New Zealand and soon in USA.
https://orangesky.org.au
http://instagram.com/orangeskyau
https://www.facebook.com/OrangeSkyAU/
* Pictures by Orange Sky and Global Happiness Family
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