their families couldn’t afford to wash their school uniforms.
Tell me about it. This is reading like absolute BS. When I was at my most broke I use to wash my clothes in the bathtub and dry them out on the fire escape and if it was took cold I would scrape together a buck or two to use the laundromat dryer. How much you want to bet all these kids who are “too poor to wash clothes” all have cellphones?
With all of the welfare available to families it is hard to believe. More likely they are too lazy, or filthy.