Bozho jayek!
Hello everyone!

April 2025

Happy Spring! The year started off with our accepting another sizable check from the Four Winds Casinos/Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. You can read more about this exciting donation below. In March, we learned that we were awarded a generous, first-time Health Equity grant from The Participatory Committee and Movement Strategy Center. In early April our efforts to address period poverty in Indigenous communities was covered by Mara Santilli, writing for PopSugar. Also in early April Lisa Witt, our New Mexico-based board member, and I visited many of the schools The Kwek Society supports in New Mexico and Arizona

We added a new school partner in Arizona and have about a dozen more in New Mexico, California and Utah that we expect to onboard soon (that will give us a presence in 22 states). As always, we’ve been busy getting supplies to students. We’ve restocked our partner schools and organizations twice already this year, and we are getting ready for a third restock before summer break. Moon times don’t stop when school breaks for the summer, and we want to be sure our partners have sufficient products on hand so students can take home whatever they need for themselves and any family members that could use period care items. Of course we stay busy over the summer, restocking for summer schools and other programs, as requested. We can only make all this happen with the support of generous donors, so thank you!

As the school year careens to a close, it’s exciting to think about how many students stayed in school this academic year while on their periods and how many are on track to graduate because they found needed period care items at their schools. With your help, we will keep adding new school and community-based partners to address period poverty across Indian Country.

Migwetch nikanek (Thank you friends),

Eva Marie Carney
Founder + Executive Director

The Pinkie Blog®

In late March we received our first donation of Pinkie Pads, a new organic pad marketed to teens and tweens. That’s when we became aware of the period education resources Pinkie shares in its “Pinkie® Blog.” We think the youngest menstruators we serve will be particularly excited to use these pads, and also will enjoy the “resources and how-to’s” offered in the blog.

Pinkie® Blog posts cover student-friendly topics such as “Can I play sports while on my period?” and “How to use a tampon: 5 easy steps.” We’ll be sharing a link to the blog posts when we share the donated pads.
Our thanks to Pinkie and to The Pad Project, our long-time friends who facilitated the Pinkie Pads donation, for helping us meet the needs of more young menstruators!

Shawnee High School

Shawnee, Oklahoma

Our long-term partnership with Shawnee Public Schools began in September 2019 when we supplied all SPS students in the 4th through 6th grade with moon time bags filled with pads and liners – approximately 600 bags! Fast forward to today, and we are regularly shipping period care items and moon time bags to all SPS elementary and middle schools and its high school, with the help of the Shawnee Alliance for Period Supplies and its founder, April Stobbe.

We love getting photos from the students and staff and hearing their feedback on the items, like the ones below, just in from Shawnee High School nurse Ashlei Matlock, RN. They make us smile and help us figure out what to supply next and when to ship it out.

Please note that we are taking some “artistic license” here — the quoted feedback came from students other than those shown in the photos!

We are particularly excited to support SPS schools as they sit on land that borders a number of Native Nations, including the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Since 2022, CPN has donated annually to our efforts in Shawnee and around the country. In addition, many of our board members (Susannah Howard, Kimberly Pratt, Pam Vrooman, Kathy Meacham Webb, Paige Willett, and Tesia Zientek) are CPN members; our founder and executive director Eva Marie Carney likewise is enrolled CPN, as are quite a few SPS students.

Four Winds Casinos/Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians

The Kwek Society hit the jackpot again this year when we were welcomed by the Pokagon Band Tribal Council members and the Four Winds Casinos’ leadership team and handed a generous check from Four Winds Casinos/Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. The temperature was a frigid 0º F, but the Four Winds South Bend’s Ribbon Town Conference and Event Center, where the check presentation took place, was delightfully warm. 

These generous folks made a five-year pledge to us last year, and we could not be more grateful for this ongoing support. You can read more about this year’s award ceremony here.

Chi migwetch (big thanks) to our Pokagon friends for supporting our work to end period poverty for U.S. Indigenous students and their peers!

The Kwek Society was one of 11 organizations splitting $335,000 in donations.

Pam Vrooman, Ph.D.
Board Member

Dr. Pam Vrooman is a citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Oklahoma. She has been in private practice for the past 17 years. She specializes in the treatment of trauma and anxiety disorders for adolescents and adults, with an emphasis on decolonizing the therapy lens by integrating appropriate cultural elements into her practice. She also works with neurodivergent individuals as well as individuals who identify as LGBTQ+.

Pam became a Kwek Society board member in 2022 and was drawn to our mission and approach to addressing period poverty, appreciating our focus on culture and practical support. “I’m most proud of how we’ve built sustainable relationships with schools and community centers all over Turtle Island that ensure consistent access to period supplies where they’re needed most,” Vrooman said. “Watching our network of partner communities grow while hearing stories of students who no longer miss school because of their periods makes this work deeply meaningful.”

Before starting her own practice, Pam worked in the field of co-occurring disorders and chemical dependency at all levels and interfaced with the judicial system by serving as the Drug/Mental Health Court liaison for Resonance Center for Women. She also worked at Domestic Violence Intervention Services offering counseling and advocacy for victims. Earlier, Pam spent 15 years in public relations and marketing doing strategic planning, market research, and writing.

In addition to her role with The Kwek Society, Pam serves on the Board of Directors for Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness Center, a 100% Indigenous-led, community-driven nonprofit that creates communal space for the urban Tulsa Indigenous community to gather, heal and grow by cultivating connections to land and ancestral wisdom. She is a member of Matriarch Oklahoma, an ongoing student of the Bodéwadmi language, and performs regularly with De’wegen Kwék, a Citizen Potawatomi women’s hand drum group. Pam is married to Samuel Harris, with two adult children, three grandchildren, and four big dogs that regularly dig up her gardens.

Migwetch (thank you) for the many ways you serve, Pam!

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. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Giving Fund, Network for Good, or by check. 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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