Shawnee Public Schools
Jefferson, Sequoyah, Horace Mann, Will Rogers Elementary Schools, and Shawnee Middle and High Schools
Shawnee, OK
Shawnee Public Schools is a district of 4,000 students in grades PK-12 and eight school sites. It sits about 40 miles to the east of Oklahoma City and borders a number of Native Nations, including the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. In September 2019 we supplied all Shawnee Public Schools students in the 4th through 6th grade with moon time bags filled with pads and liners (that’s almost 600 bags!) and offered April Stobbe, a dedicated (now-former) Shawnee School Board member interested in making sure all students have access to the supplies and period education information they need, best practice guidance, and titles of period education books we provide to our partner schools. Ms. Stobbe followed up by founding a nonprofit organization, Shawnee Alliance for Period Supplies (SAPS). Period supplies now are available in all SPS schools.
In December 2020, we used funds granted by The Sparkjoy Foundation to purchase $3,000 in period supplies (over 18,000 pads and tampons) for Shawnee Public Schools students. Richard Driskell, who oversees Shawnee, Oklahoma-based Firelake Discount Foods graciously sold the period supplies to us at cost. We continue to supply Shawnee students as our funding allows; we were gratified to receive from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in early 2022 an annual funding commitment supporting our efforts.
Thank you so much for helping my students to have much-needed menstrual supplies. Most of the girls live in poverty and truly appreciate having these products available for them at school.
Shawnee Public Schools students showing love to The Kwek Society by posing with our moon time bags.
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.
