A Winnipeg organization is asking for help in launching their social enterprise laundry.

Siloam Mission is launching Winnipeg’s first social enterprise laundry that will employ some of the city’s most vulnerable — but the organization needs help to purchase the commercial equipment.

For those unsure of what a social enterprise is, Siloam Mission CEO Jim Bell explains, "Basically, attaching a social need or a community need to a business venture. In this case, to try and help people transition or to move forward."

The commercial laundry's purpose is to give Siloam Mission participants an employment-training program and will also give them a quality reference when they look for outside employment.

Bell says, "Most importantly, we want to - as I said before - we are looking for ways to help people progress and to transition. When people come in the doors at Siloam, there can be many, many issues or challenges that they're facing."

"If people are facing, for example, problems with addiction and battling that and trying to get back on their feet, employment training is a chance. It's a chance to add some workplace experience to the resume. ... First and foremost, it's about training people to give them the skills to try ad move on and back into some kind of normalcy. ... Social enterprise alone is not going to do it, but it is a piece of it."

Bell explains that job training builds self-esteem, which is all part of the work towards giving those dealing with homelessness the confidence they need.

Siloam's laundry will start by taking over the washing needs for its own hundreds of bed sheets, blankets and pillowcases in its emergency shelter. And later on, once the business is established and meeting all of the organization’s internal laundry needs, Bell says, "The plan also includes expanding that to other non-profits that need laundry services or even businesses in the community that we would like to help out. This is meant to be a start, obviously, we hope it succeeds both ways."

As for the financial side of the laundry, "You can't do it to lose money, but it is kind of what I call a 'win-win'. We do have a plan that will start with training people so that they can start with our own internal needs because we have laundry needs associated with our shelter," says Bell.

The social enterprise laundry will also benefit more than just Siloam, business owners, or Siloam's participants. Bell says this type of initiative benefits all of Winnipeg by alleviating the strain that is felt on Winnipeg streets.

"Why not now?," Bell says, "We talk about home and the challenges in our community in Winnipeg and across our province, we've been talking about them for a long time.

"We have decided that we want to tackle this, we want to move forward with it, we want to be successful with it - in particular, successful in helping people with the skills so that they can move forward and perhaps one day lead to employment within a normal course of business."

The commercial laundry is set to start operations this fall in the Logan Avenue building where most of Siloam's clothing donations are also collected.

Siloam Mission is now asking the public to help raise the much needed funds to keep this crucial project on track.  "There are dollars required to renovate one of our buildings here at Siloam," says Bell. The organization's CEO is very confident in Siloam's supports as they "always seem to respond."

The Winnipeg Foundation has already committed a $200,000 grant to help renovate and build out space on Logan Avenue where the laundry business will operate.

Now Siloam Mission needs to raise $56,000 to purchase the commercial washers and dryers, and is hoping generous Manitobans will help with the equipment purchase to keep this crucial project on track. To support the social enterprise laundry, visit www.siloam.ca/laundry.

"We're excited about it!" Bell says, "This is a beginning, it is not an end to social enterprise at Siloam."