Mountaineer Minutes

Washing Away The Problems

By Brittany Moorehead

Jon Symons attemps doing laundry in the current crowded room.

   At National Sports Academy, a preparatory school located in Lake Placid, New York, there is a continual issue related to the laundry situation at the school. Being a second year student-athlete at NSA, I have heard multiple complaints from numerous individuals about the laundry program here.

   One complaint that has been made clear is that the laundry room is too small for the growing student body. The room is 12 by 8.5 feet, or 102 square feet, which is plenty of size to fit the two washers, two dryers and the folding table. However, fitting people in there seems to be nearly impossible.

   Since all the students are very busy during the week, they seem to do their laundry on the same days. Due to this coincidence, some students are not able to wash their clothes on their “non busy,” days but rather in the middle of the week. There can be anywhere from one to five people in this tiny room either washing, drying, folding, or gathering their clean clothes. Whether there are two people or five people in the room, getting in each others’ way is inevitable. Everyone is either bumping elbows or smacking one another with dryer doors.

   Another common complaint concerning the laundry room is that it is located in a bad spot. The girls have to travel down two flights of stairs, while the boys living in main building have to travel down three flights of stairs. The boys living in Mountain House are forced to carry their laundry outside and down the street to main building and then down a flight of stairs. This may seem like a minor complaint, but many student-athletes value convenience due to their busy and rigorous schedules. When doing two loads of laundry a week, it is time consuming to travel back and forth to check on and change your laundry.

   A great solution to both of these issues would be to put a washer and a dryer on both the boys and the girls’ floors. Also, a washer and a dryer would be installed in Mountain House for the hockey boys. This of course would cost the school some money but it’s definitely an affordable option. With the increasing number of students attending the NSA, finding money to buy more washers and dryers shouldn’t be too difficult.

   Along with the addition of these washers and dryers, there should be a quarter dispensing machine on the first floor so everyone has access to it. This quarter machine would ensure that each student has quarters to do his laundry rather than searching every pocket in hopes of discovering some.

    As a result of school and training, students’ clothes accumulate very quickly in their hampers. Making this minor adjustment will allow students to wash their clothes on a consistent basis and without having to cart their baskets too far from their room. This is a change that I believe every member of the NSA community would be enthused about.