What’s Your Washing Machine?

Akbar Cook is the principal of West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey. Newark is one of the largest and poorest cities in New Jersey, and his high school is in an area that is among the poorest and with the highest crime rates.

At 6-foot-7, the former Division I college basketball player doesn’t rattle easily. He heard some of his students were being bullied. They were being verbally and physically harassed because their school uniforms were not being washed—they didn’t have access to washing machines and couldn’t afford the laundromat. Cook took action. He leveraged grants and donations to turn a large room in his school into a free laundromat for students, complete with industrial-size machines and free detergent.

When he heard students were getting caught up in gang violence and drug issues after school, Cook started the “Lights On” program, which kept the school and facilities open and supervised for students and their families until 11 PM. Further, to give his students a start with managing their money, he partnered with Capital One bank to open a branch in the school that allowed students to open their first savings accounts (with as little as a dollar) to learn how to invest and save money.

Make Things Better

You may read this and think Cook has done some good things for the students in his school, but you are also questioning what this has to do with EMS. If you are a leader in your organization, department, facility, or hospital, there’s a valuable lesson here. A good leader cares for their people, and the way they do that is by seeing a need and taking action to meet it. As a leader, are you making things better not only for your patients but for your personnel? The washing machine was something the students at West Side High needed. What is your people’s “washing machine” where you work?

Do your people have the time and opportunity to get effective and useful training?

Do your people have current and appropriate protective gear to keep themselves safe and healthy?

Do your people have a clean and climate-controlled location to rest and eat between calls?

Do your people have an effective communications system to call for resources if they need them on scenes?

Do your people have uniforms and outerwear that not only make them look professional but also protect them from the elements?

Do your people get exposure to good role models, articles, and research from free access to EMS research, news, and trends?

Do your folks have the opportunity to be recognized for extraordinary service or advance within the organization in order to build morale?

As a leader, you have no shortage of problems to address, and you probably struggle already with feeling overloaded. Take a look at what problems hurt your people the most. President Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If you want to show your people you care, find them a washing machine, or whatever their important need is, and take action.

Resource

Hunter S. A Newark Principal is Turning His School into a Village for Students. Complex. Published December 19, 2020. Accessed March 17, 2022. www.complex.com/life/2020/12/principal-akbar-h-cook-newark-west-side-high

Barry Bachenheimer, EdD, NREMT/FF, is a 35-year veteran of EMS and the fire service. He is a frequent contributor to EMS World.