National Clothesline

More than five tons of clothes were collected at Lapels Dry Cleaning stores in its semi-annual drive to benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters Foundation in Massachusetts.

During the first week of May, patrons of all of the Massachusetts Lapels Dry Cleaning stores heeded the call to clean out their closets, bringing clothes to Lapels stores in 22 communities. The two Rhode Island Lapels stores also collected clothing donations to benefit the Big Sisters Foundation of Rhode Island.

Overall, the effort netted more than 400 bags, totaling approximately 11,000 pounds of clothing. But that was only for starters. Lawrence Friedman, CEO of Lapels Dry Cleaning plans to extend the drive this fall to all areas where Lapels has stores. that includes stores in California, Texas, Louisiana, Washington and Arizona.

“We will be contacting local Big Brother Big Sister offices in the areas where we have stores in each state and putting together the same program to benefit the Big Brothers Big Sisters Foundation nationwide, whereever there is a Lapels Dry Cleaning location, ” Friedman said.

The clothing donations are sold to thrift stores and net profits are distributed back to Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies, supporting their mission to help children reach their potential through professionally supported, one-to-one relationships.

Started in 1999, the Lapels Dry Cleaning franchise has 32 locations; its corporate office is in Hanover, MA. Lapels storeowners outsource their drycleaning operations. The company does all the research and development for its franchisees, sets up the entire store and handles all marketing from the central office. Services offered at each store include same-day drycleaning, shirts, tailoring, shoe repair, wedding gown heirlooming, suede and leather processing, box storage and fur storage.

In 2005, Lapels was ranked in Entrepreneur magazine’s “Franchise 500” as well as the magazine’s “Top 50 New Franchises.”