PACOIMA : Youths Wash Clothing for Quake Victims

Thirty eager teen-agers, mostly untrained in the art of laundry, played a part in a dirty trick Wednesday to aid those displaced by the Jan. 17 earthquake. They took one ton of sooty sweaters, muddied jeans, soiled socks and dirt-encrusted shirts and washed them clean.

Using clothes donated by San Fernando Valley family-service organizations, the teen-agers from Eleanor J. Toll Middle School in Glendale first practiced their sorting skills, using one corner of the Clean King Laundromat. Having mastered the ability to separate the darks from the lights, they did their best to correctly execute the other laundry tasks--with varying degrees of success.

After securing a washing machine and carting over a basket of dirty whites, 14-year-old Mike Nazari tried to recall the brief laundry tutorial offered by one of the supervising adults a few minutes before the teen-agers were set loose.

He opened the lid, dumped in the clothes (mashing them down until they fit to his liking), tossed in the requisite cup of detergent and then slammed the lid down and pushed in the quarters with one fluid motion.

While Mike smiled at his own technique, one of the adults who had watched his endeavor rolled her eyes and called the group over for a review of laundry rules.

“If you put your detergent in after the clothes, the detergent is going to stick to your clothes,” said Diane Kries, a representative from Surf laundry detergent, which sponsored the event. “Quarters first, water, detergent, wait two minutes, then the clothes.”

The teen-agers, many of whom passed the time between cycles by seeing how far they could open the machines’ lids without causing them to stop spinning, are participants in We Care for Youth, a social-service organization for at-risk children. The group agreed to spend a day of spring break volunteering for the wash-a-thon as a part of a community-service requirement.

In addition to the wash-a-thon, after which the cleaned clothes will be distributed to several Valley community groups, Surf distributed 4,000 vouchers for a free wash and dry at various area Laundromats.

“These are families that have been displaced, that were living in very difficult situations before the earthquake,” said Yoland Trevino, the director of the Vaughn Family Center in San Fernando. “Now they have 15 families in a household or living in cars because they have not received FEMA funding.

“For a lot of these families, being able to access these vouchers or clean clothes has been a lifesaver.”