After the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association filed a grievance over carpet cleaning cutbacks this year, Luv-A-Rug stepped up to give back to the community by offering to clean the teachers’ carpets for free. Luv-A-Rug didn’t realize at the time, just how big that offer would be.
“We had no idea how many rugs would come in and now we are overrun,” said Stephen Roberts of Luv-A-Rug, “so we rented a couple of containers to stage the rugs and our team decided to work right through the Christmas break to get this done.”
The containers were rented from BigSteelBox but shortly after Roberts paid the bill he got a call from Kyle Richmond, manager of the shipping and storage container company. Richmond had heard about Luv-A-Rug’s initiative to help teachers and he wanted to support the cause. He immediately gave Roberts a refund.
One of the reasons for the influx of carpets, comes from an email that was sent around to the schools by David Loveridge, Director of Facilities Services for School District 61. He writes: “I am not sure that all of you have heard of the offer from Luv-a-Rug to clean district school carpets for free. This is an offer made by the company as part of their philanthropic efforts and as a community partner. As the Facilities Department does not clean the area rugs that are currently in your schools, this seems like an ideal opportunity to have your area rugs cleaned and for free.”
“To help facilitate this initiative, I am offering to pick up and deliver any and all of your area rugs to Luv-a-Rug for the free cleaning and then to pick them up when they are done and return them to your school,” adds Loveridge.
This fall, custodians in SD61 were told to cut back on vacuuming area rugs in elementary school classrooms. In many schools the area rugs were being vacuumed every day, but the new order said carpets in Kindergarten and Grade 1 classes should be vacuumed only twice a week and Grade 2 to 5 carpets should not be vacuumed at all.
“We have been washing rugs for teachers in the schools for half price for years as we know they are usually dipping into their own pockets,” said Roberts. “With this latest development we are now doing them for completely free as our small way to give back to the community.”
“We are doing it for the kids. We want them to have a clean and safe learning environment,” said Roberts.
Roberts and his team are working through the holidays to have the carpets done in time for when school starts back up in January.
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