Elouera Association has recently purchased new equipment to expand Elouera Laundry.
Elouera Association Chief Executive Officer Allan Young said “We have purchased a new roller iron and truck to help deliver linen and we have also purchased a large amount of linen for a new customer.”
“We are now providing all of the linen services to one of the motels in town.”
Allan explained that taking on this work was a method of meeting a local demand and addressing a quieter phase in the business at Elouera Laundry, which corresponds with the busy season for the town’s motels.
“There has always been a quiet period and we have always wanted to get into this side of the business to address that but it took me a long time to find the right equipment and get the know-how.”
“I had a lot of help from Flagstaff in Wollongong who do a similar thing. They provided us with a lot of assistance to get us going and help get this side of the business operating.”
With the new equipment Allan says the Elouera Laundry employees are quite busy but are enjoying the change.
“It’s a whole different skill set and it’s a whole new way of doing things.”
“It’s a change for them and they say change is as good as anything. They have been doing the same thing for a very long time and it has sparked a lot more excitement.”
Allan says that Elouera Association always have a balance between creating work for people with a disability and the amount of work that is necessary to do that.
“While we would love to do all of the motels in town, at the moment we are just going to start off with the one.”
“We will look at capacity and then look to see if we can expand.”
The support from the community has been great with Allan saying that the laundry is a popular little business.
“The laundry is one of the few businesses I have been involved in my years with disability services, which was set up to address a particular need.”
Elouera Laundry was created in the early 2000s, this was due to some people in town who didn’t want to work at the pallet factory or in recycling.
“We created the business to create a job for those people and it has been successful ever since.”
The staff of Elouera Laundry will continue to service their regular customers but most likely will not be taking walk-ins as the employees workload has increased.
The Elouera Recycling Facility has also had a $400,000 upgrade making it better than it has ever been before.
“It has better facilities, better operations with a new toilet block and upgrades within the recycling plant.”
“It’s quite exciting at the moment that all of our businesses have had quite a bit of investment in the last 18 months getting ready for the post COVID period to take off and do a whole load of new things.”
Before considering expansion, Elouera will need extra workers with a disability.
Between all the facilities that Elouera Association runs, Allan says he can employ up to 12 more people.
“At the moment we just haven’t had the number of people approach us that we need to do so.”
“I am hoping we hear or see more people in the future. We have lots of work for people with a disability available.”
Tahlia Crane