The teenage girl screamed and fought with the school security officer when he tried to check her bag.
"The police later told me she had dirty clothes in her bag because she was homeless and didn't want anyone to know," Akbar Cook, the principal of West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, told CNN. "She was fighting for her pride."
Cook said many students at West Side faced humiliation because they didn't have anything clean to wear.
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"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," Cook explained to CNN. "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."
So two years ago, the principal applied for a grant from a foundation associated with one of Newark's main utility companies, PSE&G. He received $20,000 to turn an old football locker room into a school laundromat.
The renovations are now complete. The room has five washers, five dryers and a growing stock of detergent donated from around the country.
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The room is open to students free of charge between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. An adult supervisor keeps an eye out during those hours and helps pass on the important life skill of being self-reliant; one scoop of detergent and one measure of dignity at a time.
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