Run by community, for community: how Orange Sky is showing up in remote Australia

Orange Sky is an Australian charity supporting people experiencing homelessness and hardship through free laundry facilities, warm showers and genuine conversation. 

What started in 2014 with a washing machine in the back of a van now runs across 59 communities, with 450+ weekly shifts and 4,000+ volunteers. 

In 2018, Orange Sky moved into remote Australia. The same access gap existed there at a much greater scale, and almost no one was filling it. 

_{Pictured: Orange Sky’s remote locations as at 1st May 2026} 

 A third of Orange Sky's national footprint now sits in remote Australia. That's 22 communities across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, in places where a working washing machine is rare, a working laundromat is rarer and the cost of ‘going without’ compounds in ways most Australians never see. 

_{Pictured: Judith Meiklejohn Senior Impact Manager: First Nations Communities} 

Judith Meiklejohn has spent the last eight years building this part of the organisation. As Senior Impact Manager for First Nations communities, her work started with one community, Lockhart River. The service there experienced untapped capacity and impact to reach its full capacity. What it's grown into is a model where employment, partnership and community ownership do at least as much of the work as the washing machines do. 

"I think Orange Sky is going to become more and more known for what we do in remote communities," Judith says. "Our remote services make up just over a third of what we do, but they go head-to-head in terms of the impact we create."   

 Judith Meiklejohn Senior Impact Manager: First Nations Communities 

Where it began 

Most Australians live within easy reach of a working washing machine. In remote First Nations communities, that's not the case.  

A consultation in one community Judith works with found roughly 25% of households had access to a working washing machine. Stores in remote centres often stock washing machines that are expensive and aren't large enough to fit the heavy blankets families need for cold winter nights. 

Overcrowded houses sometimes run machines harder than they're built for. Modern machines run on electrical boards rather than mechanical parts, so a broken washing machine can’t be fixed with locally available spare parts like they once could. Warranties go void outside service zones. There are no technicians. 

"I've lost count of how many times I've met people where they've got two loans out for two washing machines," Judith says. "They're paying off the one that's already broken, plus the other one they've had to buy. Or they just put all the dirty clothes and old blankets in a pile and burn it when it gets too big, because they literally can't wash them." 

Coin-operated laundromats were tried and token systems followed; however, when they broke down or needed repairs there was no one funded to fix them. 

The cost of all this isn't just inconvenience. In Maningrida, one of the largest culturally and linguistically diverse Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, children experience some of the highest known rates of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the world.  

Research from the Menzies School of Health Research has identified impetigo and infected scabies as the most common gateway to RHD in remote Aboriginal communities. Skin sores spread through skin contact. Skin contact is harder to avoid in overcrowded housing. And clean bedding and clothing sit directly on the pathway between the two. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live with rheumatic heart disease at rates 60 times higher than non-Indigenous Australians. The link to the social determinants of health, including housing and access to laundry, is well established. 

This is the gap Orange Sky is aiming to address.  

How the service works 

Orange Sky's remote service runs on three things: a physical asset to house the machines, a local employee and a local partner organisation.  

The asset is either a purpose-built remote vehicle (three washing machines, three dryers, solar-powered, hot water heater) or a stationary laundry pod (two washing machines connected to hot water, two dryers, six orange chairs). 

The employee is local. Always. 

Orange Sky understands the importance of community-control and prioritises partnering with these organisations. They are commonly an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service, an Aboriginal Corporation or Aboriginal Shire Council. Orange Sky directly employs local people in Lockhart River and Palm Island. Everywhere else, employees sit inside the partner organisation, with Orange Sky supporting alongside. 

That last piece, Judith says, is the bit that gets glossed over in a lot of remote service delivery. 

"Run by the community, for the community" is used as a slogan. In practice it means local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people are employed in the roles. It means the service is shaped by the residents and the partner organisation Board, not by a head office in Brisbane. And it means Orange Sky expects to listen, not lead. 

"We don't come into a community going, ‘here's the service, here's how it's going to operate, we know how this works’," Judith says. "We engage them as the experts in their community." 

Orange Sky’s model is that the service is ‘community controlled’. This is a deliberate and intentional move away from the more common ‘co-design framing. Orange Sky's position is that community-controlled organisations lead to a better service, that handing over an asset to a Board of local Custodians is the best outcome, and that the evidence backs both. 

Where Orange Sky itself isn't community-controlled, it aims, in Judith's phrase, to "facilitate ownership through partnership." 

What the first weeks look like 

Before Orange Sky arrives in a community, there's already been local consultation. By the time the van rolls in, residents know what it is and why it's there. 

The first weeks are spent listening. Listening to the partner organisation, to the new employee, to the residents waiting on a wash. Where should the van set up? Sometimes a neutral location matters more than a central one. In some places, overcrowding is significant enough that the partner asks the van to park directly in front of houses. There's training on the ground, working through scenarios as they come up: what to do when it rains, where stock goes, how to handle someone with a skin condition, how to navigate a moment that doesn't go to plan, and, importantly, plenty of connection with the community while they’re washing. 

There's also time spent creating connection in ways that isn’t technically work. A morning walk. An afternoon at the local fishing spot. A jetty at sunset. 

"People are very proud of their Country," Judith says. "They really love it when, as a visitor, you really really appreciate and value the area that they live in." 

Underneath all of it, Judith names three things that are harder than they sound. 

1. Suspending what you think you know. "The similarities across communities is that they're all different. Treat every community like it's the first." 
2. Knowing what you can and can't change. Some things sit inside Orange Sky or your control; however, many don't. 
3. Supporting employees through complex challenges they're navigating in their own community, when you're not part of it. 

The ripple effects of local employment 

The most measurable thing Orange Sky does in remote communities is the pathway to employment. 

For some employees, an Orange Sky role is the first job they've held. Judith describes watching people grow into roles they hadn't imagined for themselves, then move on into bigger ones – including one young man who joined Orange Sky after struggling to find work, stayed several years, then went on to become a lead Aboriginal ranger and was eventually voted onto the local Aboriginal Shire Council. 

"At a service birthday celebration, I asked him to thank the community," Judith remembers. "He said about three words and then couldn't speak. He had to hand the microphone back. Two years later, he's now an influencer in his community. Driving impact." 

Beyond individual stories, three patterns recur: 

Pride. Employees are doing work that visibly helps the community they live in. 

Reliability and trust. Showing up consistently builds standing. 

Counter-narrative. "There's a perspective that Aboriginal people don't want to work, that they can't work, that they can't hold down jobs. I've been very intentional in going, we're going to make sure that we're changing that narrative." 

Orange Sky's longest-serving employees are in some of its most remote services. Where other services struggle with turnover, Lockhart River and Palm Island staff have stayed for years. A degree of anonymity, a real sense of ownership over the service and work that feels meaningful seem to be the reason. 

The health connection 

Orange Sky doesn't collect health data. That sits with the partner organisations and the local clinics. What Orange Sky does is address access. And on access, the case for connecting access to laundry with health is now clear. 

The Menzies research points one way. So does what residents see in their own homes. 

"No one has ever said to me they don't understand the connection," Judith says. "People know that if they have clean clothing and bedding, they're going to feel good. It's not because they don't have the education. It's literally an access thing. The washing is just part of that puzzle." 

A Northwest Hospital and Health Service collaboration in northwest Queensland is one of the few places where Orange Sky's contribution has been measured inside a broader health response. The strategy combined skin health teams across communities, distributed cleaning products, clinician training, culturally appropriate clinic spaces, outreach and Orange Sky vans on the ground. The result was a measurable reduction in skin concerns and strep infections. 

Judith adds, "There are two success stories. One is that yes, there's been a reduction. Two, it was through a collaborative and holistic approach, not just one silver bullet." 

The van is rarely positioned as a health intervention on the ground. Some vans carry small health messages. Most just look like Orange Sky vans, and that's the point. They function as a conduit: a place where people come, where partner organisations can connect them into screening, treatment and follow-up, and where the conversation that follows a load of washing happens because the laundry made the connection feel normalised, not clinical. 

Beyond the wash 

Some of the work Orange Sky is doing in remote communities is hard to put on a dashboard.  

A young boy in Wadeye sat for three hours waiting on a basket of clothes. On top of the basket was a pair of shoes. Asked about them, he said: "These are my funeral shoes. I want to wash everything because I want to have clean clothes for a funeral." 

"He was an old soul in a young boy's body," Judith says. "If only we'd known that we would have made sure he got in there straight away." 

It's the kind of moment that sits underneath the data. The reason a wash is rarely just a wash. The reason employment in these communities matters as much as the asset. The reason the partnership model exists. 

Looking forward 

Orange Sky's remote services currently operate in 22 communities across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. That's a third of the national footprint. 

Judith's view is that the scope is far from saturated. Australia has roughly 1,200 remote communities, some are small outstations. 

"Sometimes we focus on the bigger cities and forget that mothers, families, kids are out there in rural and remote communities doing it tough. The scope is endless." 

Asked what success looks like in ten years, Judith lands on three things. 

1. A service in every remote community that needs one. 
2. A continued preference for partnerships with community-controlled organisations. 
3. A shift in how the rest of Australia understands what life looks like outside the metropolitan locations. 

"A lot of people think Australia is what happens on the coastal areas. There's no understanding that people live in a remote area and can't buy a washing machine." 

The work Orange Sky is doing alongside First Nations communities isn't just a side program, it's a third of the organisation, by footprint and by impact. It sits at the intersection of three things most charity sectors keep separate: practical service delivery, local employment and First Nations self-determination. 

Orange Sky is on Friendship Tree 

Orange Sky is one of the carefully reviewed and curated charities you can support through Friendship Tree, with every donation backing the practical infrastructure that makes their work possible across remote, regional and metro Australia. 

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References 

Menzies School of Health Research (2018) Working with communities to end rheumatic heart disease, Menzies News, accessed 1 May 2026.  

https://www.menzies.edu.au/page/News_and_Events/Latest_News/Working_with_communities_to_end_Rheumatic_Heart_Disease/ 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) (2025) Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Australia, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 1 May 2026. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/indigenous-australians/arf-rhd 

Orange Sky Australia (2026) Remote Communities, accessed 1 May 2026. https://orangesky.org.au