Student-run business makes your laundry its mission

College life is stressful enough without worrying about clean underwear. Finding time to catch up on laundry can be tough between maintaining a good GPA, inevitable roommate drama and working enough hours to barely pay the rent.

Enter Laundry in a Flash.

The student-run business, re-launched in Spring 2009 after an unsuccessful 2008 launch, offers the students of Kent State an on-campus drop-off laundry service with drop-off locations in the Tri-Towers rotunda and Eastway Center.

“We’re up a little more than 1000 percent from last year,” said Laundry in a Flash CEO and Kent State junior Chris Lintner. “We’ve changed so much in our business plans as well as the workings of the business that it’s almost hard not to see at least a little bit of a change, but we weren’t expecting anything near like what we’ve done.”

Lintner addressed the shortcomings of the previous Laundry in a Flash business model, “Before I came in, Laundry in a Flash was working with a drop-off schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we had one location and you would pay by the pound.” The re-vamped business model nixed the pay by the pound system, added the Eastway Center drop-off location, a new Monday and Wednesday drop-off schedule and four affordable package plans.

The Semester Package costs $229, which covers once-a-week laundry service for 14 weeks and includes a bag that holds approximately 17 pounds of clothing.

“Students with a once-a-week plan can drop it off Wednesday, we wash it Thursday, and have it back to them by Friday,” Lintner explained. The service breaks down costing $16.36 per week.

Think it sounds too costly? That depends on how much you value your time.

“It’s an easy solution to something that’s hard to fit into a student’s busy schedule,” said Director of Entrepreneurship Julie Messing. “A lot of it [the price] is the convenience of it.”

Kent State alumnus Collin Bruning reminisces about his laundry experiences while living in Verder and Koonce halls.

“You were always playing ‘beat the clock’ with the other kids,” Bruning said. “You never knew if anyone else was going to be using them [the washer and dryer] or if someone was going to take your clothes out because they needed to use them [the washer and dryer].”

Laundry in a Flash is not the only drop-off laundry service available to students in the area. 101 Laundry, located in the Acme Plaza at 1683 E. Main St., also offers drop-off laundry service.

“We have a lot of repeat students,” said 101 Laundry employee, Missy Harmon. “We have customers we see all the time during the school year. They don’t come in once during the summer, and they’re back again the next school year.”

The cost of the service at 101 Laundry is $1.25 per pound with a 10-pound minimum, which equals $12.50 for 10 pounds of laundry. The 17-pound bag supplied by Laundry in a Flash would cost $21.25 at 101 Laundry.

There are options available to help lessen this stressor called laundry. Whether or not these options are worth it is up to you to decide.

Contact Morgan Galloway at [email protected].