VOA慢速英语2015 在自助洗衣店学习

AS IT IS 2015-05-23 Learning at the Laundromat 在自助洗衣店学习

The spring term is coming to an end at colleges and universities across the United States. The past few weeks were a busy time for many students, including those at Washington Adventist University, near Washington, D.C.

Some students from the university have been helping¹ poor, mostly immigrant children with their schoolwork. But the students did not work with the boys and girls at a traditional school. Every Thursday night, they have been meeting at a laundromat, a place where people go to wash their clothes. The college students are all studying business. They help the children do mathematics homework and increase their understanding of American English.

At the same time, the students are carrying out a marketing² plan they designed for this laundromat in Silver Spring, Maryland. They want the Rainbow Coin Laundry to grow and increase its business.

Every week, many people bring their clothing and their children to the Rainbow Coin Laundry. While the parents wash the clothes, the children are busy learning.

Some children completed their schoolwork with help from Washington Adventist University student Heather Alas³.

“We want to help the little kids with their homework. A lot of them don’t understand English all that well. So we do try to make sure they understand their homework because sometimes their parents aren’t able to help, as well. "

Christine Sumampouw is also a tutor in the program. She says the program began with just five children, but has grown to about 20. She has been writing a marketing plan for Nok Kim, the owner of the laundromat. They created the idea of a tutoring program to give people a reason to keep coming to the laundromat.

“He’s really friendly with his customers. So, we figured why don’t we try something that he can give to the community?”

The project began last year when Nok Kim asked Kimberly Pichot for help. Ms. Pichot is the head of the university’s business department.

“When we first started working with him, business was bad, which is why we came in. He’d even considered closing his business. But the conversation got started, and we said ‘OK, let’s do a face-lift, let’s redesign his logo, lets…’ and the ideas just started coming. And as we were brainstorming⁵, one student says ‘You know there’s a lot of immigrant children hanging around. Why don’t we add tutoring?’”

Mr. Kim says the laundromat is slowly getting more business.

The project is part of an international entrepreneurial program called Enactus. It was launched in the United States 40 years ago. The program is now at more than 1,700 college and university campuses in 36 countries.

“They want to give students experience before they graduate. And so we collaborate⁶ with the community and with businesses. And we find things that the students can do to enhance our community.”

Ms. Pichot says her students are working with other businesses in addition to the Rainbow Coin Laundry.

“Every year, we start the year out with a small business symposium⁷. And we invite any business to come in. It’s a free workshop. And so from that symposium we self-select. We see who wants to work with whom. And then throughout the year, we help other businesses with accounting⁸, with taxes, with marketing, cost analysis -- a variety of things. So this year we’ve worked with a restaurant. We just started working with a tax service to help them expand to a second location. We’ve worked with sports trainers to help expand a dance club.”

She says the students help business owners increase their profits while gaining experience that they cannot get in school.

“And so the depth of their learning is a world apart from just that dry classroom environment where they walk away with a few concepts. They volunteer long hours.”

Christine Sumampouw is completing her studies this year. She has spent about 1,000 hours as a volunteer. That is more than any other student in the group. She says she has learned a lot from volunteering.

“When I first started, I really didn’t think anything of it. Like, I just wanted to get involved in something. But I happen to really like it. Now I, I can say I love working with small businesses.”

Words in This Story

homework – n. work that a student is given to do at home

tutor – n. a teacher who works with one student

face-lift – n. changes made to something to make it more attractive or modern

redesign – v. to change the design of (something)

logo – n. a symbol that is used to identify a company and that appears on its products

brainstorm⁴ – v. to try to solve a problem by talking with other people; to discuss a problem and suggest solutions

hanging around – idiom spending time idly; to be in a place or in an area, doing nothing in particular

entrepreneurial – adj. the quality of starting a business and being willing to risk loss in order to make money

collaborate – v. to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something  

enhance – v. to increase or improve (something)

symposium – n. a formal meeting at which experts discuss a particular topic

dry – adj. not interesting, exciting or emotional

concept – n. an idea of what something is or how it works

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

3 alas   

int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)

参考例句：

• Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
• Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。

4 brainstorm   

vi.动脑筋，出主意，想办法，献计，献策

参考例句：

• The women meet twice a month to brainstorm and set business goals for each other.她们每个月聚会两次，在一起出谋献策，为各自制定生意目标。
• We can brainstorm a list of the most influential individuals in the company.我们可以集体讨论，列出该公司中最有影响的人员的名单。

5 brainstorming   

献计献策,合力攻关

参考例句：

• With Brainstorming, treat the view on how to solve the problem rightly. 利用脑激励法(Brainstorming)，正确对待学生实验中的问题解决观。
• We are going to do some brainstorming soon. 我们很快就要做些脑力激荡。

6 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

7 symposium   

n.讨论会，专题报告会；专题论文集

参考例句：

• What have you learned from the symposium?你参加了这次科学讨论会有什么体会？
• The specialists and scholars present at the symposium come from all corners of the country.出席研讨会的专家学者们来自全国各地。

8 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。