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Mobile laundry bus and showers provide clean clothes, dignity at Solomon Temple shelter in Atlanta
Summary
Flowing With Blessings founder Nikki Crawford brought a mobile laundry bus and described ongoing mobile-shower work at Solomon Temple's Women and Children's Shelter in Atlanta, saying the services help residents change clothes multiple times per week and restore dignity.
My name is Nikki Crawford. I'm the founder of Flowing With Blessings, she said as she described a mobile laundry bus serving Solomon Temple's Women and Children's Shelter in Atlanta.
Flowing With Blessings has operated mobile showers for about four years and is in its first full year operating a mobile laundry bus at the shelter, Crawford said. The service aims to wash clothes and return them so residents can change “2, 3 times” over the course of a week.
“This is 1 of the only rehabilitation centers in our city that the entire family can stay together. There are 121 rooms here. That means there are 121 spaces for families to come and actually take care of themselves,” Crawford said, describing the shelter’s capacity.
Crawford said the organization built the laundry service after identifying a need for clean clothes that can affect job prospects. “It’s so important for them to not only have shelter, but the clean clothes because a lot of people think that they might be soiled or they smell, but it’s actually the clothes that are smelling that are preventing them from the jobs and from moving forward in their life and being productive members of society. So cleanliness is the next step thing into restoring dignity, which we truly believe in,” she said.
Flowing With Blessings began with mobile showers — Crawford said she started with three private showers and later added the laundry bus. The organization reports showering about 50 to 60 men per day at Grady Hospital every Tuesday and Thursday and said the combined services allow it to serve “well over a hundred people or more.”
Crawford credited partnerships and local referrals for expanding the work. She said the group partnered with “Solomon Smallwood and Solomon Temple” and that Antonio Lewis told them about the shelter’s need for laundry services; she also cited “Miss Valerie, who runs Solomon’s Temple,” as a collaborator.
Crawford described the work as volunteer-driven and not paid: “I don’t get paid a penny, but I love what we’re what we’re doing.” The remarks in the transcript focused on service operations and community partnership; no formal actions or funding commitments were recorded during the presentation.
