K-M 3rd graders help Kasson ‘Laundry Love’ project

“Service learning” is something that Kasson-Mantorville third grade teacher Allison Whalen wants her students to learn.
Laundry Love in Kasson is a new project started by a group of volunteers including Pastor Kristen Schlauderaff of St. John’s Lutheran Church. Its aim is to provide a little help to those people who are finding that the cost of doing their laundry at a laundromat can be difficult, especially for a family.
Put the two projects together and the third graders learned about serving the community and Laundry Love received a donation of $2,900.
“I am passionate about implementing service learning into my classroom and have done it several times throughout the years,” Whalen said. “Service learning combines community service with learning objectives.”
Whalen said that she attends St. John’s Lutheran church and heard about Pastor Schlauderaff wanting to bring the Laundry Love program to the community. Laundry Love is a national non-profit organization that partners with a laundromat to provide laundry services at little to no cost.
“This sparked the idea in me to involve my class in raising funds for this new program. When talking to my class about the idea, they were all eager to help,” Whalen said in an email to the DCI.
It began first with the “learning” part. The first question, she said, was how a laundry impacts the community. Then they considered other questions such as how do individual actions impact the community and how has laundry changed over time.
All of the learning tied directly to these questions, while also supporting third grade social studies standards.
The students also brainstormed ideas for raising money to help Laundry Love. Whalen said the class decided on a cash and coin drive, for a week, for all of Kasson-Mantorville Elementary. “We would invite all students to bring in cash or coins to their classroom teacher for a whole week. The classes in each grade level that brought in the most money, would win a special treat,” Whalen wrote. “We had Pastor Kristen come in to tell about the Laundry Love program, the cost of using the laundromat, and other details about this new initiative so that we had that background knowledge and a better perspective about Laundry Love.”
After the learning was complete, they rolled out the “service” portion of the project.
Whalen’s students were split into “teams” and each team was in charge of a grade level. Students made posters to hang around the school, they made a video for classroom teachers to play to their classes that explained what Laundry Love is and how it can help the community. They even had some students speak to the whole school during a KMES KoMet Pride Assembly. Classroom teachers and the office also put snippets about the service-learning project in their family newsletters to help spread the word.
“Our class had one main purpose in our communication with parents, school staff and students: everyone deserves to have access to clean laundry and we can come together as a school to make a difference in our community,” Whalen wrote.
Parents from her class were super supportive and donated treats that would go to the top classes in each grade level, she said.
For a week, she said, students from her class went with their teams into classrooms and collected monetary donations. In the afternoons, they used their math skills to count the money brought in for the day. Throughout the week they kept teachers, and their classes, informed about which classes were leading and how much we had raised overall. Mid-week, the students made another video for teachers to show their students about the progress. They also shared the progress on the KMES Facebook page.
“Students really rallied for the greater good including bringing in their birthday money, tooth fairy money, asking friends, family and neighbors to contribute, bringing in their piggy bank change and other creative ideas,” Whalen wrote. “I think all students were fascinated with how quickly small bags of change can add up!
‘By the end of the week, we were shocked and so incredibly grateful to have collected $2,875.11! The following Monday, one of my students announced the school total and the winning classrooms over the intercom system for all staff and students to hear. My students were able to go deliver the fun treats to the winning classrooms.”
“We did have more money trickle in, for a final total of $2,931.55! One of the final tasks my students completed was making thank you cards for each classroom. In the card they also included how many loads of laundry that specific class contributed to. Finally, we invited Pastor Kristen in and we presented her with a “big check.”
“While this project was organized by my classroom (and brought in over $500 themselves), it really took the whole Kasson-Mantorville community and beyond to help. A huge thank you goes out to the KMES administration for approving the project, Pastor Kristen for bringing Laundry Love to our community, school staff who worked hard to spread the word and motivate students to help the cause, K-M families/neighbors/friends who contributed and the KMES students who generously brought in cash and coins.
“Our classroom had a goal to raise a couple hundred dollars, but it was truly an amazing experience to see the excitement rise in my room every day after we counted money and calculated totals. I hope this is a memory that my class carries with them for a long time. I also hope it inspires other kids in our community to know that they can be the change and make a difference!”
Laundry Love is available to anyone who wants to participate on the third Tuesday of each month, 5 to 8 p.m., at the Coin Laundry on Main Street. Individuals can receive machine tokens for up to $15, a household of two people $25 worth of tokens and households of three or more tokens up to $30. Free detergent and dryer sheets are also available.
The first Laundry Love event was on March 18 and 16 people where served and funds were provided for 57.5 loads of laundry, Schlauderaff said.