Together we can
End period poverty.
No student should miss school or other daily life activities because they are on their moon time and don’t have period supplies. By stocking period supplies in schools and community centers, we are keeping students in school and making sure students can engage in sports and other outside-of-school-day activities while on their moon time.
Our core work is supplying period products — pads, liners, tampons, our moon time and Big Auntie bags filled with supplies, reusable pads, menstrual cups, and cotton underwear for period accidents at school – to the schools with whom we partner. We also offer school partners a range of puberty education books. We buy these from Amazon, for the most part, to be housed in school libraries and counselors’ offices (we can’t afford to furnish all students with their own books).
Period supplies ensure menstruators’ dignity. Period education empowers menstruators and reduces stigma.
With the help of many, we are making headway. We have come a long way since 2018 when we started by supporting one school’s students. But there is so much more to do. Our near-term goals are to grow exponentially the number of period products and educational materials we donate and extend our reach to at least 250 school and community-based program partners through 2024. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate period poverty in Indigenous communities.
With your help, we can meet these goals and continue to ensure dignity, empower menstruators, and reduce stigma.
There are many ways to support our work. Whether you are an individual, a family or friends group, a business or non-profit group, a faith community, a donor-advised fund, or a foundation grantor, we welcome your support. Please consider how you can help. Perhaps you can put us in touch with a community that needs our help or you can organize a period supplies drive in your own community. What’s a contribution you can make that we haven’t thought of? We welcome your ideas and your partnership.
We appreciate the love and care you show through your donations, your time, and the supplies you send.
Chi Migwetch (Thank you, in Bodwéwadmimwen, the Potawatomi language)
The Kwek Society Founder Eva addressing period poverty activists in November 2020
Donate to our Mission
Our primary uses of donor funds are to purchase period supplies — in bulk, where possible; to pay costs of shipping or trucking supplies to our partners, who are situated throughout the United States; and to cover administrative fees assessed on some of the products donated to us.
We treasure all donations and especially welcome monthly donations, as these give us stability as we work to meet the monthly moon time needs of those we support. Please consider giving a donation monthly in celebration of your own moon time or that of the students we support, or others in your life!
Paypal Giving Fund
When you donate through this link, PayPal pays all fees and we get 100% of your donation.
AN ONLINE DONATION
You also can donate monthly through Network for Good, or monthly or one-time through AB Charities, which accepts Venmo, GooglePay, PayPal and credit cards (each of these platforms charges us a small fee per donation).
Send a check
Made out to: The Kwek Society
The Kwek Society
Attn: Eva Marie Carney
P.O. Box 5595
Arlington, VA 22205
A financial statement is available upon written request from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs. You may also contact us to request it.
Get Involved
Share our story
We will have more impact when we reach more supporters. Share our mission on your social media, connect us with your network. Help us tell our story!
Invite us to Speak
We will have more impact when we reach more supporters. Invite us to speak to your organization, or at your event. Together we can amplify the mission!
Connect with schools
Do you know of a school where we can reach students in need? Let us know! Would you or your organization like to adopt a school? Wonderful! Let’s connect!
Host a product collection drive for us
Hosting a period supply collection drive spreads the word in your local community about menstrual inequity, and allows folks to make a difference one box of period supplies at a time. Watch this video to see how you can host your own period supply collective drive and support The Kwek Society.
Restock Supplies
Want to make a direct impact? You can help us continue our work by gifting much-needed items from our Amazon Wish List.
These supplies keep our programs running smoothly and help us provide essential support every day. Whether it’s a small item or a bulk donation, every gift helps!
Host a virtual product collection drive for us
Conducting a virtual product drive for us, through Be Prepared Period, is easy and contact-free. Just answer a few questions, set a goal, and BPP will set you up with a donation link you can share with your contacts. Participants donate funds online and these come to us in the form of BPP’s organic pads and tampons.
Contact us for more information or
Send products + Moontime + Auntie Bags
Sew and stuff moon time bags
Are you someone who can sew, or do you want to learn? Moon time bags are a perfect sewing project to provide period supplies in an attractive package. Sew some up, fill them with pads and liners, and send them to us.
Moon Time Bags provide period supplies in a celebratory, small package.
Bags that are the size shown fit up to four ultra-thin (size 1) pads, a couple liners, and a message of celebration from The Kwek Society. Having a bag ready in a locker or backpack goes a long way to reducing anxiety of students anticipating their first periods, and of anyone who worries whether they will have access to period supplies when they need them.
You can learn more about The Kwek Society’s mission and the Citizen Potawatomi kwe’k/women behind our moon time bag design and instructional video here.
Create Auntie Bags
We are calling on volunteers to make and stuff Auntie Bags for us. These are lovely, lined drawstring bags that hold a moon time cycle’s worth of pads along with other items (fresh underwear, a paper period tracker, etc.) a student can add as needed for comfort and support during moon time. We call them “Auntie Bags” because they reflect the love and support of all the aunties out there – trusted adults who care about students. They are significantly larger than our moon time bags, which hold a couple of pads and liners, and are a response to community requests that we offer an aesthetically pleasing bag to hold a month of period care items.
“Big Auntie” tip from The Kwek Society, Czarina and Jayne – the video instructions are for a smaller bag; we are happy if you make them that size. As an alternative (to make a somewhat bigger bag to hold more supplies), you can use one rectangular piece of fabric, 13×30 inches, for the outside part of the bag; two rectangular pieces, 13×15 inches for the lining/inside of the bag. Also, the video doesn’t include instructions for an inside pocket. We’d like these bags to have an inside pocket. For the pocket, you can cut a piece of fabric to 5×5 inches, turn down the top edge, and then zig-zag around the sides and bottom to make the pocket into which we’ll insert our card. Then stitch the pocket to the inside of the bag.
Ignacio (Colorado) High School students with their Auntie Bags, March 2025
We hope that students receiving our moon time bags and our Auntie Bags will be uplifted by our message that we are all related and in community together and that everyone behind The Kwek Society is excited to celebrate each student’s moon time for the natural and exciting development it is.
Want to make Auntie Bags for us? Follow this link to step-by-step written instructions and an accompanying video, curated for us by Citizen Potawatomi sisters Czarina and Jayne, the k’wek (women) who in 2018 created the pattern for our moon time bags. We’d love you to sew them up up, stuff them with 20 size two pads, and ship them off to us! And if you’d prefer to simply sew and mail, we’d love that too — we can stuff them.
When we receive the bags from you, we will add our information card to them, just as we do for the moon time bags. The front of the card reprints a portion of a poem about the moon that celebrates life and the connectedness of all earth’s inhabitants. The poem is, Remember, is by Mvskoke Nation citizen and 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo. The back of the card directs students to the part of our website that highlights moon time teachings and links to educational materials and health and safety-related resources. We share the poem, teachings, and links to encourage students’ feelings of connectedness to Indigenous ways of knowing and to empower them. Please help us reach more students through our bags and included information cards, if you are able!
Ignacio (Colorado) High School students with their Auntie Bags, March 2025