LaundryCares Free Laundry and Literacy Day Event in Denver, CO

DENVER, August 2, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On Saturday, August 14, 2021, the LaundryCares Foundation will host a Free Laundry and Literacy Day event in collaboration with Too Small to Fail and Big Heart World in Denver, CO from 12 – 4 PM. The location of this event is Iliff Coin Laundry, 7511 E Iliff Ave, Denver, CO 80231.

Free Laundry & Literacy Day events provide free laundry services and cleaning products plus free food and fun activities for children and adults to enjoy. Laundry owners, distributors, manufacturer employees, and local community members will participate as volunteers helping to facilitate this event.

As part of the event, a new Family Read, Play & Learn space will be installed within this laundromat. These literacy play spaces provide a comfortable seating area, high-quality books, toys, and other materials designed to help parents engage in literacy-rich interactions with their children during laundry time. Similar learning spaces have been launched in laundromats across the nation through the Laundry Literacy Coalition – a partnership between Too Small to Fail and the LaundryCares Foundation. An independent evaluation conducted by NYU found that placing "Family Read, Play & Learn" spaces in laundromats had an overwhelmingly positive effect on children's literacy-related activity during their visit. In total, throughout the course of the evaluation, researchers observed 1,378 instances of literacy-related activities in laundromats with these spaces compared to laundromats without them.

Millions of families in under-resourced communities visit laundromats each week to fulfill the basic need of having clean clothes. For many of these families, fulfilling this basic need can often be a challenge. With that in mind, Iliff Coin Laundry, the LaundryCares Foundation, and Too Small to Fail are excited and honored to offer a day of free laundry services for people in the neighborhood. Guests can bring an unlimited amount of laundry to the event and will receive free laundry products to help clean their clothes.

While the guests do their laundry, children can engage in early literacy activities with the Denver Public Library and puppet making with master puppeteer Marilyn Price. Free children's books will be distributed to the families at the event.

This event will also serve as the launch Big Heart World's Loads of Summer Love, an effort to provide families with fun, location-specific games to promote children's social-emotional development while doing the laundry. Big Heart World is presented by Sparkler Learning in collaboration with Noggin, Nickelodeon's interactive learning service for preschoolers. Sparkler Learning will send activity posters and coloring sheets to 100+ laundromats across the country as part of this initiative. It will also make songs from Noggin's Big Heart Beats Album and other Big Heart World content available — so families can sing, dance, and learn together about understanding feelings, developing confidence, making friends, celebrating differences, and more.

"Everyone is excited to help this new store open its doors and already give back to the neighborhood the business will serve. We're especially grateful for the installation of the new Family Read, Play & Learn Space here; it's perfect for this location." – Dan Naumann, Executive VP, LaundryCares Foundation

"We hope Loads of Summer Love will help parents turn laundry time into learning time, helping kids grow big hearts with the characters they love while doing the laundry with their grown-ups!" — Michael H. Levine, SVP for Learning and Impact at Noggin

"We're grateful to the LaundryCares Foundation and to Too Small to Fail for their partnership and for their commitment to bringing learning to families where they are." — Julia Levy, Executive Director, Sparkler Learning

About the Laundry Cares Foundation

The LaundryCares Foundation is dedicated to helping laundromat owners provide services through their stores such as Free Laundry & Literacy Days and childhood literacy resources to families in underserved communities. Visit us at https://www.laundrycares.org. For additional information about this event or the LaundryCares Foundation, please contact Dan Naumann at (630) 953-7920 or at [email protected].

About Too Small to Fail

Too Small to Fail, the early childhood initiative of the Clinton Foundation, promotes early brain and language development by supporting parents and caregivers with tools to talk, read, and sing with their young children from birth. Today, almost 60 percent of children in the United States start kindergarten unprepared, lagging behind their peers in critical language and reading skills. Through partnerships with pediatricians, hospitals, faith-based leaders, community-based organizations, businesses, entertainment industry leaders, and others, Too Small to Fail is meeting parents where they are to help them prepare their children for success in school and beyond. Whether at the pediatrician's office or the playground, Too Small to Fail aims to make small moments big by creating opportunities for meaningful interactions anytime, anywhere. Learn more at http://www.toosmall.org.

About Big Heart World

Big Heart World is an initiative produced by Sparkler Learning in collaboration with Noggin that enables parents and educators to help children explore what it means to have a "big heart" and how to grow one. Big Heart World brings together partners, including Too Small to Fail, the National Head Start Association, First Book, School Library Journal, and many others to help parents, caregivers, and educators support children's social and emotional growth. Learn more at http://www.BigHeartWorld.org.

Media Contact

Dan Naumann, LaundryCares, +1 6304910491, [email protected]

SOURCE LaundryCares

Related Links

https://www.laundrycares.org