Social entrepreneurs and 2016 Young Australians of the Year Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett have brought their mobile laundry service to Tasmania.
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The best mates, of Queensland, developed Orange Sky Laundry in 2014 and have put their lives on hold to volunteer full-time this year.
Their custom-made laundry vans wash and dry clothing for homeless people, and also offer volunteers a chance to connect with the community in a unique way.
They established their tenth van in Hobart last week, after they brought it over on the Spirit of Tasmania.
The volunteer-run operation has attracted a team of 75 Tasmanian volunteers so far, with almost 700 contributing their own time across Australia.
They have about seven more vans being readied for distribution.
Mr Patchett said the pair were exploring how to combine servicing capital and regional cities.
"What we're passionate about is making really efficient use of that resource,” Mr Patchett said.
“We might only ever have one van down in Tassie, but that van might make a trip to Launceston once a week and spend a couple of days in Launceston.
“What we're doing at the moment is growing our service to lots of different vans, and then after that working on scaling up the operations to have more hours ... washing every day."
During the one hour of time it takes to wash and dry someone's clothes, there's not much to do so sit down, have a really awesome chat.
- Orange Sky Laundry co-founder Lucas Patchett
Mr Patchett said although the service is meaningful, it’s the conversations while waiting for the clothes to launder that was truly invaluable to both clients and volunteers.
“During the one hour of time it takes to wash and dry someone's clothes, there's not much to do so sit down, have a really awesome chat,” Mr Patchett said.
One particular encounter that Mr Patchett remembers clearly occurred on their first night operating Orange Sky Laundry.
Jordan, a man five years older than Mr Patchett who had attended a similar school and studied the same degree at the same university, came to use the van’s services.
"A few life decisions that didn't quite go his way ... caused him to be living on the streets of Brisbane,” Mr Patchett recalled.
“It was just a real eye opener for me, firstly that power of conversation ... and also how homelessness can happen to anyone in a really quick instance,” he said.
“It really set the tone for me 22 months ago.”