It’s easy to take for granted the little luxuries that we have in everyday life.

From being able to turn on a faucet and get drinkable water to having a washer and dryer for clean clothes, these amenities become forgettable due to their easy access to most.

One New Jersey principal is hoping to change that, though – one laundry room at a time.

Akbar Cook began working at West Side High School in Newark, N.J. four years ago. He said the school had been losing two or three kids each summer due to gun violence.

“I needed to find a way to save them,” Cook said.

It really affected me having my kids killed.”

But he noticed that it wasn’t just violence that was a problem, it was lack of access to clean clothes keeping students away from school and being involved in more dangerous situations.

Two years ago, Cook said, there was a 16-year-old student who refused to let school security check her bookbag. After an argument ensued and the police were called, they soon realized what she had been hiding in her bag: dirty underwear and clothes.

A New Jersey high school added a laundry room to help students who had no access to the utilities at home. Photo from video

“She was homeless that weekend and didn’t want anyone to know,” Cook said.

It was an all too familiar site, he said. Eighty-five percent of students are habitually absent, missing on average three to five days of school a month, with the majority wanting to avoid showing up and getting bullied for wearing dirty clothes.

“I’ve seen kids in the back of the class talk about kids in the front of the class and how they smell and how their clothes look dirty,” student Nasirr Cameron said.

The bullying, Cook said, had begun to show up on social media and that was when Cook knew a change had to be made.

“These are kids, good kids who want to learn, that are missing three to five days a month because they were being bullied because they were dirty,” he said “I even changed the school uniform to darker colors so they could go more days without cleaning them, but even with that, students were struggling to have them look clean enough to attend.”

Sadly, the situation was made worse by some students at the school.

“(Other students) were posting on Snapchat and Instagram about how their classmates were coming to school with dirty clothes on, like posting a pic of a student’s dirty collar,” he said.

I knew we had to do something.”

Cook began pushing the idea of getting washers and dryers to put in the school’s football locker room, and applied for a $20,000 grant from the energy firm Public Service Electric and Gas Co. They were awarded it, and the school purchased five washers and five dryers, as well as items needed to turn the locker room into a small laundromat.

Students have access to the room on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, where a staff member is always present to help.

“Some kids don’t know how to do laundry,” Cook said. “We have to teach some of them how to do that.”

A young girl gets her laundry out of the washer. Photo from video

His work hasn’t gone unnoticed by school and community leaders.

“We take things for granted that are easy for us. [Cook] doesn’t,” said Ellen Lambert, retired president of the PSEG Foundation. “You want everyone to succeed, especially young people. He finds those places where success doesn’t happen and he figures out why and he goes after it.”

“With the laundromat, (it’s) a benefit to students because they’re still getting their education and they’re getting their clothes cleaned,” said student Kalim Harvey-Belcher, who had missed school before because of an unclean uniform. “You can come to school smelling like Tide every day.”

The hope is that students will take this opportunity and be more active in school, and in the long-run make better choices outside of school, as well.

“We are trying to teach them to navigate their pride,” Cook said. “My kids are fighters – they just need good ways to fight for themselves, and then take pride in what they can do.”

Watch below for a look at this amazing mini-laundromat for students!

Sources: CNN |  Washington Post