Somewhere on the laundry list of funding needs for Hawai'i's public school athletic departments is ... laundry.

Any parent with kids involved in sports knows how this household duty pops up more often in-season, and a school with hundreds of athletes on up to 25 or more teams over a nine-month calendar needs high-volume, efficient washing and drying machines and crates of detergent to keep uniforms and practice jerseys clean.

Farrington received a $17,000 donation from its alumni association earlier this year to rebuild its washroom, including a brand new commercial washing machine.

In the past, Farrington athletic director Harold Tanaka said department staff would sometimes spend entire nights just doing load after load of laundry.

"At our school, we don't let anything (uniforms) go home," Tanaka said. "We wash everything here."

Each public high school athletic department saw its state allocation for supplies and equipment slashed by 50 percent compared to 2008-2009, part of an overall reduction of more than 36 percent.

Farrington's Alumni Association donation was not part of the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association's "SOS" (Save Our Sports) Fund campaign, but money from SOS will go toward similar causes.

The SOS Fund's running total has now reached $985,861 after just over nine weeks. That includes this week's $100,000 contribution from the McInerny Foundation, $5,000 gift from Painting Industry of Hawai'i and $3,000 from Kaiser Permanente.

All money collected through the SOS Fund will be turned over to the state's Department of Education, which in turn will distribute it to Hawai'i's 55 public high school athletic departments according to a set formula based on student participation.

To contribute, make a check payable to "HHSAA SOS Account" and send it to HHSAA, P.O. Box 62029, Honolulu, HI 96839, or visit www.sportshigh.com or any First Hawaiian Bank branch (checks only).

Read his blog on high school sports at http://preptalk.honadvblogs.com