Couple uses 2 laundromats to help NW Arkansas youth
“Ultimately, the goal is to send these babies to school clean, to where they can have some self-confidence.” Ben Snodgrass
BENTONVILLE — Tiffany Snodgrass, an elementary school teacher, and her husband Ben Snodgrass, a firefighter and paramedic, both have jobs serving their community.
Their commitment to service extends to their role as business owners as well.
The couple own and operate two laundromats — Sugar Creek Laundry in Bentonville and Olive Street Laundry in Rogers — through which they’ve channeled their desire to help those less fortunate. Ben Snodgrass is the primary manager of the laundromats.
“These small towns are not such small towns anymore,” Ben Snodgrass said about Northwest Arkansas. “And to me it’s super important that we not lose sight of being a community, where we take care of each other. That’s the most important thing we can do.”
Much of their work revolves around kids. They did a coat drive last fall and brought in almost 1,000 coats. They’re collecting new backpacks this summer, which they’ll fill with school supplies and give to students in time for the school year.
The Snodgrasses have provided vouchers worth $25 each for laundry services to the Bentonville and Rogers school districts. School counselors may slip a voucher into a student’s backpack if they believe that student’s family would benefit.
Ben Snodgrass said he doesn’t know how many vouchers the schools are doling out, and he doesn’t put a cap on it. He knows only how many vouchers are being brought into his business.
“Ultimately, the goal is to send these babies to school clean, to where they can have some self-confidence,” he said. “I don’t want them to be sitting there in class worried about whether or not their shirt or pants are stained. I want them to be able to focus on the lesson that’s going on.”
Dawn Cook, a teacher in the Springdale School District, called Ben and Tiffany Snodgrass “wonderful humans.”
“I think they see their laundry business more as an opportunity to connect to a community versus a business opportunity,” Cook said.
Cook volunteers with Loads of Learning, a program facilitated in part by the Snodgrasses. The program meets once a month at one of their two laundromats. During those designated times, people may do their laundry for free; meanwhile, Loads of Learning volunteers read books to the children who have come in with their parents.
Loads of Learning started under a different name as a service learning project at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Students were challenged to gather donated books and raise money to pay for laundry services at several sites, said Karmen Bell, a clinical instructor of childhood education at the university.
When the money ran out, Ben Snodgrass agreed to continue paying for it at Olive Street Laundry in Rogers, which he’s owned since 2014. The Snodgrasses bought Sugar Creek Laundry last year.
Cook has volunteered as a reader regularly for the past few years, starting when she was an undergraduate student studying education at the university.
Cook was present for the most recent Loads of Learning event June 19 at Sugar Creek Laundry. She sat on a blanket on the floor and read to about eight children ranging from 2 to 10 years old, she said.
“Some are a little shy,” Cook said. “We had one little girl who stayed back a bit, but always was watching what I was doing with the kids. And she kept getting a little closer, and then a little closer.”
Some kids asked her to read the same book multiple times. The most times she read one book was three, she said.
The Snodgrasses provided hot dogs, chip and drinks in addition to the free laundry that night.
A bookcase at Sugar Creek Laundry contains dozens of books for children of various ages. Kids are encouraged to take a book before they leave.
The Snodgrasses are “very much a huge part of this project,” Cook said. “Honestly, we couldn’t have kept it going without their support.”
Bell, who was Cook’s instructor for a class on emergent and developmental literacy, also helps run Loads of Learning. She’s working on a mission statement for the program. Cook and Bell plan to incorporate activities related to science, technology, engineering and math into Loads of Learning events.
“I want to see it grow and serve more families,” Bell said.
Ben Snodgrass, when approached with an idea for a potentially beneficial program, always agrees to do it before he figures out how it’s going to be done, Bell said.
“He always says ‘yes.’ When there’s so much ‘no’ in the world, Ben and Tiffany are always ‘yes,’” she said.
The Snodgrasses have three children, ages 10, 12 and 14. Ben Snodgrass decided to get into the laundromat business shortly after the couple’s oldest child, Brandon, died in 2013 at the age of 18. He said getting into the business was a distraction from his grief.
“He asked me to have a little faith and let him try it,” said Tiffany Snodgrass. “I told him he was crazy. But now I take that back.”
He’s provided laundromat jobs to special education students from Bentonville’s West High School so they may get some valuable work experience. An exterior wall on the west side of the Sugar Creek Laundry building has been painted white, and special education students will be invited to come down and add their own artwork in individual squares on the wall, Ben Snodgrass said.