Bozho jayek!
Hello everyone!

April 2024

We are excited to share our recent news now that spring has arrived!

In January, we accepted with delight a big check from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and its Four Winds Casinos, celebrating the start of their five-year commitment to our work. We’ve also welcomed generous support from the nonprofits Albuquerque Involved and The Kathryn McQuade Foundation.

We expanded to North Dakota and Michigan and now have a presence in 18 U.S. states (and continue to partner with a school in Canada’s Ontario province). We added new school partners in South Dakota and began partnering with the four Shawano School District schools in Wisconsin. That’s 10 additional schools of students who now are receving our period care support.

Period care donations are coming in strong! We secured a very generous donation of Always pads and recently received a commitment from Poise to supply a mind-boggling 700,000-plus period pads and liners. UbyKotex — through our membership in the Alliance for Period Supplies — has offered another large commitment of pads. These donations will bring us close to the 4-million-items-distributed mark. We also recently accepted a generous offer from Saalt that allows us to offer quality menstrual cups – and Saalt’s easy-to-follow YouTube instructions for their use – to the students we support. Read more about this donation under “Supporter Spotlight” below.

Acting on our belief that it is vital that more Indigenous voices are heard in mental health and menstrual experience research, we’ve started a collaboration with Cornell University’s Adolescent Transitions Lab. Lab researchers are investigating adolescent perceptions of menstrual pain; our role is to introduce some of our school partners to the researchers who will follow standard research protocols and administer their surveys in Fall 2024.

There continues to be so much more to do to end period poverty! With your help, we can keep increasing our reach across the United States to support the period care needs of more Indigenous students and their peers. A link to all the ways you can help us is highlighted at the end of this newsletter. Migwetch nikanek (thank you, friends).

Bama pi (until later),

Eva Marie Carney
Founder + Executive Director

Long Line of Ladies

Long Line of Ladies is a powerful 22-minute documentary from Academy Award-winning director Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandin Tome. It is a celebration of periods, following a Karuk community of women as they prepare for teenager Ahty’s coming-of-age ceremony, or Ihuk. The documentary captures Ahty’s strength as she learns how to conduct herself during the ceremony and what it means to embark on adulthood. It is an intimate look into the kindness and support she receives from her community rallying around her as she is taught sacred knowledge.

This film was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, American Indian Film Festival and many more. It won many awards after debuting in October 2023. Our founder Eva participated in a “Brain Trust” screening of the film earlier that summer, along with a handful of other Indigenous kwe’k (women). And she wrote a reflection about it for the Toolkit that is being used to facilitate post-screening discussions.

The Kwek Society will be hosting a virtual viewing and discussion of the film on Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. ET, over Zoom. We are looking forward to sharing the film with our supporters and some of the trusted adults with whom we work at our partner schools. We expect a lively discussion, and  hope you can join in. Registration is required.

Read this “Short of the Week” review of Long Line of Ladies.

Baraga Area Schools

Baraga, Michigan

Special Education Teacher Desiree Lauritsen is passionate about supporting Baraga Area Schools students. She contacted us this winter on behalf of her students and hit the ground running to ensure we had the information we needed to start our partnership with Baraga Area Schools.

Desiree surveyed students about their period care needs and the supplies they preferred. We then provided about 140 students in this rural K-12 school a dozen Saalt menstrual cups in addition to multiple shipments of disposable supplies. The General Peter Gansevoort Chapter of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution generously supplied each student with a moon time bag made from our pattern. 

Here’s her exhilarated response when she got our shipments: 

“I received a TON of boxes today!! yay!!! I am so excited!”

Desiree with some of her Baraga Area students, unpacking their moon time bags.

Migwetch (thank you), Desiree, for the care you show your students!

Saalt.

We now are receiving from Saalt regular donations of its menstrual cups. We don’t anticipate that very many of the students we support will want to – or be able to – use menstrual cups, but we are excited to have them on hand to offer students and eager to hear feedback from those who try them. According to Saalt . . .

In making its offer, the company also pointed us to its YouTube channel for instructions on cup use; we now are sharing this link with the students and staff receiving the cups.

Having these cups ready to share with menstruators resonates with our belief that everyone has the right to period products of good quality that are a joy to use during their moon time. Migwetch (thanks), Saalt, for this generous support!

Tesia Zientek
Board Member

Our board member Tesia Zientek was recently featured by Oklahoma media for her work in the state, her advocacy and volunteer work, and her amazing sense of style and thrifting skills.

“It was a huge honor and gave me an opportunity to reflect on all of the things I like about living in Oklahoma and the people and places that are most meaningful and special to me,” she said.

Tesia holds responsible positions on multiple nonprofit boards, so we were honored that Tesia highlighted The Kwek Society as one of her passion projects.

“For me, the mission of The Kwek Society is so beautiful in its simplicity – to end period poverty – and really that connection to education speaks to me as someone who works in the education field,” Tesia said. “I think the incredible growth of the number of schools and students served over the last several years shows that the need is really high.”

Tesia particularly appreciates our newsletter content and specifically the traditional teachings and period education opportunities highlighted in each one, since they “break the stigma of what it means to have a period.”

Tesia has been a board member of The Kwek Society since June 2020. We so appreciate her giving a voice — and style — to our mission!

Read the full feature article at liveinokla.com.

Be sure to check out our swag shop! We’ve added these new t-shirt designs that we think you’ll love.  All profits fuel our work!

We hope you’ll visit our How to Help page for volunteer and donation ideas, including links for giving to us one-time or monthly. Do you like to use GooglePay or Venmo when donating? It’s easy to do that, by accessing the link to ActBlue Charities. We are grateful for each and every donation!

The Kwek Society, incorporated in Virginia, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN # 82-4369803). Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our financial statement is available on written request from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs, PO Box 1163, Richmond, Virginia 23218. Our Candid/Guidestar report can be found here.

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