The Community Laundry Liphook is a charitable organisation established to help the elderly, disabled people and short term incapacitated people of Liphook and the surrounding villages. The group was awarded a grant of £1,000 as part of HIWCF’s Cost of Living Crisis Fund in 2022.
The Community Laundry was established approximately twenty years ago when a group of Liphook residents decided that the small room on the side of the Day Centre would be an ideal room for a laundry for the elderly and their carers. They felt it was a much-needed facility as wet washing is heavy, drying it is often difficult, particularly in the winter months, and standing ironing is almost impossible for some elderly people or people with disabilities. With the help of some local builders, the building was extended and facilities added and in July 2011 local residents took over the management of the laundry from Age Concern Hampshire, and have been helping the community ever since.
The laundry opens Tuesday to Friday 7.00am – 11.00am. Laundry is washed, dried and ironed for a cost of £6 per bag, for a washing machine load.
Group representative, Joan Holdsworth, said:
“We are delighted and hugely grateful to HIWCF for this grant which will be an enormous help to us to keep our services going for those who need them. We are a small charity dealing predominantly with the elderly and infirm and as such rely heavily on fundraising to balance the books and avoid price increases to our clients so a £1,000 grant makes a big difference to us.
“The main aim of the Community Laundry is to assist the elderly in our village and surrounding areas to continue to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. We are acutely aware that many of our clients are on fixed incomes and the prices charged by commercial laundries would be beyond them, we therefore aim to keep the price charged to them for our services as low as possible which means that we rely on fundraising and donations to make up the inevitable shortfall.
“The HIWCF grant gives us security for the next 12 months, enabling us to absorb increases in rent, service charge, insurance premiums and utility charges without having to increase prices to our clients at a time when they, like everyone else, are feeling the effects of high inflation.”
