What We Do

ULT Provides Free Laundry Services for North Carolina’s Low-Income, Unhoused and Working Class Communities

Our mission is to serve families in North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham region by providing them with free laundry services and laundry supplies, meeting them in spaces that work for them.

Rapid Direct Laundry-Service Program: ULT works with local community partners, including the “HEART” program, to receive and respond to individual emergency laundry requests. We serve our community members within a 48-hour period, and allow them the opportunity to alleviate their urgent laundry needs. We choose wash locations that are convienent for those we serve, and sensitive to their needs.

Monthly Free Community Laundry Events:Uplift chooses a local laundromat to host free laundry events every month. Community members are encouraged to come out and receive direct laundry assistance and free laundry supplies. Uplift also serves as a local connection point at our Free Laundry events, providing community members with critical information that connects them food banks, shelters, and economic workforce development programs.

We partner with local non-profits, health systems, and interfaith communities, and we provide our community with tools to maximize our services, including hygiene support items, laundry detergent, bedding, and toiletry items.

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NIH Link: Links Between Asthma and Bacterial Infection/Exposure
NIH Link: Links Between Asthma and Bacterial Infection/Exposure

Recent Events:

Three men standing indoors against a wall, with a clock and electrical panels in the background. The two men on the left and right are wearing orange T-shirts with 'ULT' and 'Uplift Laundry Truck' printed on them. The man in the middle is wearing a black T-shirt and making a peace sign with his fingers.

Advocacy and Awareness

ALICE®‍—The Hidden Face of Laundry Insecurity

Many of the community members ULT serves are part of a largely invisible group: ALICE

  • Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. SINGLE MOTHERS are a large and critically important part of the larger ALICE umbrella.

  • 39% of NC Households are below the ALICE Threshold. Over half of these households are led by SINGLE MOMS.

  • 68% of ALICE Single Moms are FULL TIME EMPLOYEES.

  • Even single mothers with full-time salaried positions and college degrees still qualify as “working poor”

  • Laundry Insecurity occurs in 78% of single-mom-led households due to the need to provide food for children, pay utility bills, pay rent, and pay off student loan-debt.

  • Children who live in ALICE households often suffer from chronic laundry insecurity—leading to pubic school chronic absenteeism, increased cases of chronic asthma, and chronic strep throat cases, and bacterial skin infections.

ULT’s Global Laundry Initiative

The Uplift Laundry Truck (ULT) Global Laundry Initiative serves as a catalytic data-gathering and economic development mechanism designed to facilitate the formal transition of targeted regions from "3rd-World" status to "Emerging Economy" status. By leveraging data-driven programming to mitigate laundry insecurity and hygiene poverty, the initiative establishes the foundational infrastructure and socioeconomic resilience necessary for sustainable macroeconomic elevation.

Launch Timeline: 2026-2027

  • We provide emerging economies in Southeast Asia and West Africa with tools to combat laundry insecurity, based on data gathered by our global team.

  • We believe in practical approaches to advocacy and research that give a clear picture of how to reduce laundry insecurity in our targeted communities

  • We work with emerging economies, where access to laundry security can function as a lever for foundational structural economic growth

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