When entering the Longwood Academy of Discovery in the Bronx, guests are greeted by things normally seen in elementary schools: art and informational posters on the walls, a gym full of kids playing, a security check-in table. But now, the school’s students and their families also have another, somewhat unique, resource at their disposal: a laundry room.
City Council Member Rafael Salamanca Jr. joined officials at the academy and New York Edge — a nonprofit that provides after school programming — on May 3 for the opening of the new laundry room, which educators said will significantly help alleviate the burden of families living in temporary or shelter housing without access or enough money for laundry services.
Victoria Nájera, principal of the Longwood Academy of Discovery/P.S. 333, was emotional during the ribbon-cutting last week.
“We see many types of ways that children may not feel comfortable to come to school, sometimes it has to do a little bit with how they dress or what families can and can’t afford,” Nájera said. “So we thought outside the box. We thought, ‘How do we support our community?’”
The principal said school officials especially noticed financial strain for families during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the laundry room exists to hopefully ease some of the financial burden of the day-to-day.
Nájera has been leading the Longwood Academy of Discovery since 2019, but worked as an educator in both the Bronx and Manhattan before she became principal. She said she hasn’t seen laundry rooms in elementary schools before, but that she read about high schools with laundry services.
“We have a lot of students in temporary housing, so we wanted to make sure that a parent doesn’t have to make a choice,” she said.
Salamanca secured the $200,000 needed for the project, which was denoted on a giant check he handed to Nájera on the day of the opening. His Council District 17 encompasses the South Bronx neighborhoods of Longwood — where he’s from — as well as Mott Haven, Hunts Point, Morrisania, Crotona Park East, Concourse and West Farms.
The council member, who is term-limited out of his seat in 2025, told the Bronx Times this is an example of some of the last initiatives he wants to see cross the finish line before he’s out of office. Salamanca has filed with the New York City Campaign Finance Board as a participant for the 2025 citywide elections in the race for Bronx borough president, although he hasn’t confirmed whether he intends to launch a campaign yet.
Salamanca said he wants to focus on passing “strong legislation that changes lives,” however simple, before his tenure is up. One of those, he said, is his 2020 bill that requires every New York City park to have a safe and sanitary diaper changing table.
“They may be small to certain individuals, but it’s a life-changer,” he said.
Salamanca said the laundry room opening at the Longwood Academy of Discovery is another simple quality-of-life issue he’s been trying to tackle, especially since he said his council district is one with a disproportionately high number of homeless shelters.
“Speaking to different principals in different parts of my district, certain schools have a higher percentage of homeless families than others,” he said. “We realized that some of our students are actually coming to school with clothes that need to be washed — clothes that stain, clothes that they’ve used multiple times and it smells — and so we saw an opportunity here.”
The laundry room at the Longwood Academy of Discovery is currently open Monday through Friday during school hours between 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Families can sign up for a two-hour time block at school, or call the students in temporary housing coordinator or the community school coordinator to get on the schedule. Nájera said the Longwood Academy of Discovery and New York Edge hope to extend laundry hours in the future as well.
“We wanted to make sure that our school does become a center of community and this could be a space where parents can come and feel that they could do something, such as laundry, that could alleviate that pocket,” Nájera said.
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
