Here’s a great chance to help a woman entering or re-entering the workplace. Wash Cycle Laundry and Gearing Up will be doing pick-ups around Center City and West Philly of gently used, interview-ready professional attire for the fantastic non-profit Career Wardrobe, which works to support women transitioning to work. Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Ave.) will serve as a drop-off point in West Philly.

Studio 34 will be collecting clothes now through Sunday, July 22. Bring your clothing in bags labeled “Career Wardrobe” to Studio 34’s front desk before 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 22.

Here are some guidelines from Studio 34:

• We accept clothes for all seasons!
• Donations should arrive ready to wear: clean, on hangers, with all buttons, working zippers, and no tears or stains. (If you don’t have hangers, don’t worry! the organization hosting this donations drive will find hangers for loose clothing. But if you have hangers, please include them.)
• Items not used for this program will be donated to other nonprofit organizations or sold at The Wardrobe Boutique, a recycled clothing boutique to benefit Career Wardrobe’s programs.

Here’s an idea: someone on a bicycle comes to your place, picks up your laundry, does it for you – including folding – and returns it, also by bicycle. Clean and green.  This exists and it’s called Wash Cycle Laundry. If you think this is a good idea, then you are not alone. Echoing Green, an angel investor in socially conscious entrepreneurial businesses, has named Wash Cycle a semifinalist for one of its 2011 Echoing Green Fellowships.

Now to be honest there are a lot of semifinalists – 224 to be exact. But that is out of 2,854 applicants. About 15 of those semifinalists will be awarded fellowships, which include start-up money to pay for health insurance, a stipend and access to legal and financial help.

Gabriel Mandujano, the former executive director of the Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation in Walnut Hill, started Wash Cycle Laundry earlier this year. The company does pick-ups and deliveries in West Philadelphia and Center City. You may have seen their bike trailers loaded with large blue tubs.

Fellowship winners will be announced in May.