worth street reach will be closing december 2018
our mission is to empower those in poverty through sustainable work, clean laundry, and innovative housing solutions.
Our website will update in January 2019 as a tribute to the work done and as a resource to guide you to other organizations in Santa Barbara. We are grateful to announce Laundry Love will continue on under new leadership. Thank you for your years of support and encouragement!
For those living below the poverty line, washing clothes presents both a logistical problem and a financial hardship. It is our mission to take laundromats and convert them into hubs of relief, granting reprieve to those living in oppressive poverty through aid in education, basic medical care and assistance in job and housing placement.
Laundry Love was started by the non profit organization Just 4 One. Laundry Love is open source, allowing others to start localized efforts for those in need. There are now over 300 Laundry Loves around the US.
We provide the quarters and detergent for guests to wash and dry their clothes. Laundromats team with us by giving us a specific day and time to provide this service.
Laundry Love People partner with local laundromats in cleaning the clothes of those living below the poverty line.
Laundry Love
Laundry Love Santa Barbara is a program of Worth Street Reach a division of Kids And Bikes Foundation 501c3
Help at one of our locations just once a month. Volunteers help sign guests in, put quarters and detergent in machines, clean up and build relationships. If you are unable to join us, you can still help by donating money, detergent, bleach, dryer sheets, food and more. Just email us and we'll arrange to pick up your donation.
Financial Donations
$300 will wash about 35 loads of laundry. Laundry Love can only happen each month because of your generous donations. Tithe to us monthly, have your business sponsor a month, have a garage sale and donate the money, put a donation jar at your work, sponsor a dance off ... whatever you can do is a HUGE help!
Donations can be made to:
Kids And Bikes Foundation with Laundry Love in the memo.
Mail to
Worth Street Reach
PO Box 91441
Santa Barbara, CA 93190
Locations & Volunteering
House of Laundry
310 N. Milpas
Every 3rd Sunday of the month
1 - 3 pm, last load in by 2:30pm
run by Tom
Click here for Google Maps
North Milpas Laundry / Launderland Coin-Op
834 N. Milpas
Every last Tuesday of the month
11am-1pm
run by Leslie & Deborah
Click here for Google Maps
Isla Vista Laundromat
955 Embarcadero del Mar
Last Tuesday of the month
5-7pm
Every last Tuesday of the month
run by Ryan
Click here for Google Maps
Our outreach services began when Freedom, a Vietnam Vet died on State Street in Santa Barbara in 2009. Moved and grieved that someone could freeze to death in our affluent community without the simplest of jackets or warmth created in the heart of Deborah a journey to start a blanket, sleeping bag and jacket campaign called Blanket Blessings. Deborah got on KLITE radio and shared the needs and the journey began. Others began joining in the outreach drawn to the organized and well planned events and safe ways to serve. One day, sitting in the rain by the mall with a street friend to talk about his plans, both Deborah and the friend were spit on and had names called at them, and told they were worthless her nomad friend said this was a daily thing and very demoralizing because he was looking for work all the time. Deborah told him he was not worthless and she began the fight for acknowledgement and breaking the fears and stereotypes. WORTH STREET REACH was birthed from that incident because she believes every person has a value and worth. The outreach morphed with the needs, serving beside Westmont College Bread of Life in Alameda Park with a One Wish campaign, clothing distributions, bike for jobs campaign, Right Records- copying vital ID papers and waterproofing them. Helping nomads obtain IDs and performing annual clothing, tarp, sleeping bag and toiletries campaigns. From there was the goal to get seniors out of shelters and streets and into congregate housing. Creating a graffiti removal work program to beautify our city, while teaching volunteer nomads a trade in exchange for debit cards for cell phone minutes, groceries, bus fare, and gas cards. Now outreach includes aiding RV dwellers, housing seniors and aiding families.
Our Story
< Back to ALL OUTREACHES
WSR formed teams with interns who join us to lead, encourage and engage individuals living in poverty to volunteer and give back to our community by removing graffiti, tagging, and debris from our city streets.
The volunteer teams worked in four hour segments while fulfilling community service hours or receive vouchers for food, phone minutes, gas, or bus tokens.This voluntary project taught individuals to give back and take pride in their community through these meaningful and needed services.
The goal of this project was to help change lives in a dignified way. To encourage and offer hope to people in their current state; often un-showered, hungry, without a phone and without a home. Weekly classes educateed in needed tasks and aid with job interview skills, resume assistance and job testing; linking individuals with long term jobs.
Bicycle Graffiti Removal
< Back to all OUTREACHES
Recreational Vehicle Dwellers are considered homeless in the eyes of the government. Anything not fixed to the ground is Homeless. We could not disagree more. As outreach workers, we consider Mobile Home Dwellers safe, able to lock a door, sleep in a bed, prepare and store food, personal items, files, IDs and more. It prevents assaults on women, is a safe place when housing is in a crisis and below .01% and unaffordable. Many Motor Home Dwellers are senior women, large families, couples and more. We say Motor Home Dwellers because their homes are not for recreation. Largely an unreached population, no one knows how many we have in our community, how many dwell in them, and how to figure it out. No one else reaches out to them.
We formed a group called Wheels Liaison to bring Motor Home Dwellers together, learn about their needs, their numbers and to give them a voice.
The City of SB banned RVs in 2016. Homeless individuals were forced from industrial areas into residential neighborhoods, creating issues. Criminalizing these vehicles and their inhabitants is wrong. Making them street homeless is unconscionable. We need to find reasonable solutions. They are voting constituents, most having lived here all their lives.
RV Dwellers
< Back to all Outreaches
Outreach: Former Projects
805-366-3117
info@worthstreetreach.org
Mailing:
Worth Street Reach
PO Box 91441
Santa Barbara, CA 93190
Contact Us
- By mail
Checks can be made to Kids And Bikes with the specific program written in the memo section (General Outreach, Laundry Love). Kids And Bikes is our parent nonprofit.
Worth Street Reach is a 501c3 nonprofit. Tax deductible letters will be sent to all donors.
Donate
As of December 2018 we will be closing
and no longer able to accept donations.
We'll be in touch soon!
Thank you!
Board Members
Deborah Barnes - President
After returning to Santa Barbara to raise her daughter, she was a sought after event coordinator and brought in amazing companies to use our many hotels and clubs for their destination location events. She also became politically active for water rights and for blue collar workers, never losing a campaign. Deborah owned several businesses on State Street and in our community. As a landscape designer of several years, her work was rained out for several months one winter. Freedom, a homeless Veteran died during these freezing storms, one of 19 deaths that winter alone and she was moved to take action. From this point on she went into full time service to our homeless community and never looked back.
Magda Barnes - Secretary
Magda grew up in Santa Barbara and is a graduate of Westmont College with a BA in Art Education and a teaching credential. With the encouragement of her mother, Magda started serving at a young age those most in need through programs like Unity Shop, Transition House, Rescue Mission and Dream Foundation. After college Magda started a chapter of Laundry Love when she realized that our shelters are unable to provide support for clean laundry to those most in need.
Laundry Love has continued for 6 years now joining our volunteers and guests together with a goal of being clean but more so of bridging the gap by loving all in our community.
David Koppa - Treasure
Dave began his business career in insurance and financial services in 1978 in Santa Barbara. As an independent agent, he established his own agency, Cornerstone Insurance Services in 1992 and his current specialty is in the senior market. He serves as co-chair of the NAIFA CA PIC (Political Involvement Committee). In addition, he was a Regional Director for LUTC, overseeing the states of California, Hawaii and Alaska from 1999 to 2007. In the local community, Dave has volunteered his time working with junior high and high school children as a bowling coach for over 25 years, and currently sits on the board of the Santa Barbara County USBC Youth Bowlers Association as President.