Bozho jayek!
Hello everyone!
December 2024
We are wrapping up our busiest year yet here at The Kwek Society and sending you warm winter wishes.
In October, we expanded our partner list and began supplying period care to students attending the three schools that make up the Poplar School District, in Poplar, Montana. Poplar is the Tribal headquarters for the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes. With the addition of Montana, we now reach 20 states!
In the last few months, we also added new school partners in Colorado (Fort Lewis College), Michigan (Saginaw Chippewa College), North Dakota (Solen Public School District #3), Oklahoma (Schulter Public Schools), and Wisconsin (College of Menominee Nation). With these additions, we support period care for 230 schools and community groups, meeting the needs of about 32,000 menstruators.
We have distributed 1.7 million period care items just this year, along with close to 11,0000 moon time bags, Auntie bags and books. Since we got our start, those numbers are almost 4.6 million and 38,000. While we celebrate these numbers, we know there are so many U.S. Indigenous students at risk for period poverty that we are not yet supporting, and that keeping the schools and community groups that we’ve committed to help is a big undertaking.
A number of generous folks recently stepped up to assist with funds and in-kind donations, including the Notawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi and The Honey Pot Company. We hope to add you to our list of end-of-year (and perhaps even monthly!) supporters. All the ways to help – including donation links and mailing addresses – can be found on our website.
We truly appreciate the love and care shown through donations of time, funds, and supplies. Migwetch nikanek (thank you, friends).
Eva Marie Carney
Founder + Executive Director
Free Period by Ali Terese
We’ve added the book Free Period by Ali Terese to the list of titles we make available to school counselors and library personnel on their request. Its publisher describes it as Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret for the next generation!
We think it would make a great holiday/winter break book for the 8 to 12 year olds in your life. We order our copies from our local independent bookstore, One More Page Books, a loyal supporter of our work to end period poverty across Turtle Island.
Here’s a review by Amanda McGregor, published in the School Library Journal blog:
8th grade besties and utter chaos monsters Gracie and Helen love pranks. LOVE them. They’re looking for an epic prank to finish off their middle school years. When it goes totally awry, their principal makes it clear she is just so over all of their hijinks. Punishments don’t work on them. They just don’t care. So, their principal decides, their punishment is to care. To do something that matters to the school community. They join the Community Action Club (I mean, chaos monsters like action. That’s gotta be something, right?) But oh no! Nemesis Madison is in charge! And Michael F., who Gracie has a little crush on, is in the group! And this is a group that seems about logical and quiet ways to ask for change. Asking the school board for help? No! Chaos monsters would rather super glue them to their chairs! Alas.
The two projects the club is working on: getting rid of plastic straws and a project for period equity. They’re asking for pads in all the girls’ bathrooms at school. Period products should be stocked in schools just like paper towels and toilet paper – they are not a luxury item. They’re necessary for basic health and safety. Good thing Gracie has joined the group and is there to point out that girls aren’t the only ones who get periods and the school needs products stocked in all bathrooms.
Schools Across Turtle Island
North Dakota, New Mexico, Alaska, Oklahoma, and Montana
Here are some of the heartwarming photos and words of thanks we’ve received from students we support and the trusted adults who make sure we are updated on students’ needs. We hope you feel as buoyed by them we do, since it’s our supporters who make what we do possible!
North Dakota
“Solen Public School District loves all the supplies and resources sent through The Kwek Society,” reports Solen Public School District Title I Coordinator Traci Peterson. “These will be so helpful and are greatly appreciated by our students. [Supplies are now stocked in] the free supply areas in the schools. Thank you so much for your partnership.”
Solen Public School District students in Solen, North Dakota, pose with our moon time bags, November 2024.
New Mexico
This fall, Kandice Duvall, the school nurse at Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, New Mexico, surveyed her freshman students for their thoughts on the support we provide. Among the comments were:
“Thank you Kwek Society for showing your support. It means the world to us women as community.”
“I love how they give menstrual products to those in need. It really helps other women and girls who are having a difficult time. Thank you!”
“Thank you for having woman stuff in stock.”
“Thank you for everything you guys do for girls like us 🙂 .”
“Love all the effort that goes into making sure indigenous girls are taken care of. Ahe’hee, The Kwek Society.”
“Thank you so much, this helps a lot.☺️”
Montana
Poplar School District students with our period care items at Poplar High School, Poplar, Montana, November 2024.
Oklahoma
“Not everyone has resources or a parent that will provide the supplies needed,” said one student to her Shawnee, Oklahoma-based teacher after receiving our shipment of period products.
Alaska
School Social Worker Jeanine Brooks, MSW, serving students at Kéet Gooshí Héen Elementary School in Sitka, Alaska, wrote this to us:
“Last week, I was able to provide my puberty lessons to all of our fifth grade students. Our lessons have become an anticipated, high quality experience by our students, and I thank you for making that happen. … [T]he puberty books, moon bags, language to use to let these girls know that they are part of a world of strong women who hold them up, and the other many resources [you make available] have made our program the positive experience that it is today. Thank you!
After every puberty lesson, my office is frequently visited by girls, often in friend groupings, to ask for period supplies and bras. It is so inspiring to see this Indigenous girl empowerment!”
We’re so grateful that, with our donors’ help, we are able to help all these students!
Kristen Moore and the New York Chapters of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
Kristen Moore, based in Schenectady, New York, has been instrumental in getting The Kwek Society’s name around the state through the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Kristen’s DAR chapter and others around New York have donated around 4,000 bags, with an in-kind donation value of over $33,000, in 2024 alone.
About a year and a half ago, Kristen Googled for organizations that support Native American communities at risk for period poverty. She and other members of the Gen. Peter Gansevoort Chapter of the DAR started making moon time bags and donating period products to The Kwek Society as part of a DAR service project. Everyone felt connected to the cause.
“Many of the women in my chapter have said, ‘Well, it’s because we’ve all been there and gotten our period and not had product.’ So this is really a thing that speaks to everybody,” Kristen said.
New York-based DAR members/Kwek Society supporters sew, pack and sort moon time bags for shipment.
To get us further support, Kristen contacted Nicole Richmond, the New York State Chair for the American Indians Committee of the DAR. Nicole grew up in western New York around the Seneca Nation and jumped into the effort to grow support for our work throughout the state.
Kristen and Nicole, through their DAR networks, quickly gathered carfulls of period care donations, and yards and yards of fabric for bags. They report that our work resonates with DAR members of all ages across the state. The huge number of moon time bags DAR members made and filled this year are in the hands of students in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. One member has already test-driven the pattern for our newly-debuted Auntie Bags; her filled bags have now made their way to an elementary school in Oklahoma.
Thanks from CCSD’s Kirtland Central High School students.
Happily, these kwe’k (women) show no signs of slowing down!
“We just got inspired, and our chapter just loves it,” Kristen said. “Members tell us ‘We can’t stop [making] the moon time bags! We love the project.’”
Igwien (a heartfelt thanks) to Kristen, Nicole and the New York-based DAR members for their vital support that helps ensure that students don’t miss school because they lack period products.
Lisa Witt
Board Member
The Witt Family
Lisa Witt has served on the Board of Directors of The Kwek Society since 2018. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, serving as The Kwek Society’s woman on the ground in the Land of Enchantment – the location of 38 of our school and community group partners. Lisa has taken three trips to partnership sites around New Mexico since 2018.
“As the Kwek Society has grown, and as I’ve traveled to the schools we support, I realize our work is about much more than period supplies. It’s also about celebrating Indigenous practices,” Lisa said.
Lisa remembers her first visit to one school warehouse in New Mexico. A Diné woman ran the warehouse with a mostly male staff. Lisa said that, during that first visit, the men were reluctant to discuss the period supplies donated by The Kwek Society and unsure how to talk about periods with us. However, when she returned two years later, the entire staff “seemed to be proud of what The Kwek Society was doing and that period supplies were provided not only to the girls but to their mothers and grandmothers. One of the men shared with us stories about a Kinaaldá ceremony he attended for his niece and even brought in to work to share with us some of the corn cake (alkaan) his niece prepared for the ceremony.”
“It’s been rewarding to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.”
Outside of The Kwek Society, Lisa is the Marketing Manager and Owner of Quilted Care Ltd Co. and oversees senior living communities in New Mexico, Texas and Nevada with her husband, Tom. Lisa and Tom have two adult children, and Lisa also serves as Board President of the David Specter Shalom House, a HUD-financed low-income community for seniors.
Lisa previously owned Avista Video Histories and, earlier, served as the Chief Economist, Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State and as Senior Budget Analyst, International Affairs Division, Office of Management and Budget, when she lived in Washington, D.C. Lisa graduated with a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Michigan and a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
We are grateful to Lisa for making time for and bringing her passion for helping others to The Kwek Society!
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! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal, 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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