Meet our Founders
Co-Founder & CEO, Uplift Laundry Truck
Before founding Uplift Laundry Truck, I spent years working in the public sector in health and human services, including early intervention services supporting children from birth to age three and their families. Later, I spent a brief period working in public education.
Across these roles, I saw families navigating challenges that extended far beyond any one system. Housing, transportation, health, finances, and access to basic necessities are interconnected—and when one need goes unmet, it can affect nearly every other part of a family's life.
Laundry was one of those needs.
It is easy to overlook until you don't have reliable access to a washer and dryer or enough money left after paying for rent, food, transportation, and utilities. For families already under financial pressure, something as basic as washing clothes can become another difficult decision.
Those experiences helped shape Uplift Laundry Truck.
Today, as Co-Founder and CEO, I lead Uplift's work to address laundry insecurity by connecting individuals and families with laundry assistance, detergent, hygiene resources, and community support. We work alongside laundromats, schools, healthcare organizations, community partners, and funders to make these services accessible to families across our communities.
My background continues to influence how I approach this work. Laundry insecurity isn't just about clothing. It intersects with health, school attendance, employment, financial stability, and dignity.
What began as an effort to meet one overlooked basic need has grown into a larger mission: helping communities recognize laundry access as an important part of supporting families.
Yasini Carr
Co-Founder and CEO, Uplift Laundry Truck
Yasini’s Story
Josh’s Story
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Uplift Laundry Truck
For seventeen years, I stood on the podium as a band director in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Durham, North Carolina. Every one of those years was spent in Title I, low-income communities. I had the privilege of watching students grow in musical literacy, creative expression, and confidence. I also saw the weight they carried into the room with them.
Of all the pressures my students faced, laundry insecurity was among the most constant. The cities and communities changed, but the pattern never did. When families can't consistently afford to wash their clothes, the stress follows children into the classroom, touching their health, their confidence, and their ability to focus. Faced with needs that feel urgent, students have no choice but to move learning down the list. That isn't a lack of ambition. It's a reasonable response to circumstances no child should have to manage.
Laundry insecurity is easy to overlook because it happens quietly. Yet its effects are visible everywhere: in a child's confidence, a family's health, and a parent's ability to show up ready for work. That's why we treat laundry as a social determinant of health and a barrier to economic mobility, not a private struggle. Clean clothes support dignity, and dignity opens the door to everything else.
That realization is why my wife, Yasini, and I founded Uplift Laundry Truck in 2023. Our mission is to lift the financial burden of laundry from low-income families, so they can spend their energy on what comes next: learning, emotional well-being, and building a stable future.
Today, Uplift Laundry Truck is based in Durham and serves families across Wake, Durham, Johnston, and Orange Counties, including Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Wherever we show up, the goal is the same: clean clothes, restored dignity, and room to breathe.
Every clean load is more than clean clothes. It's a student who walks into school ready to be seen, and a family with one less worry.
Joshua Carr
Executive Director and Co-Founder, Uplift Laundry Truck