Inspired to Act

YouTube videos launched students into summer community service projects

Project Pink Tax
After watching a YouTube video that detailed a lack of menstrual-hygiene access for unhoused women and how that can result in life-threatening infections, Mackenzie Reilly ’23 and Yochana "Yochi" Hobson '23 began an initiative called Project Pink Tax this summer. Their goal? To increase access to menstrual-hygiene products for those in need in the greater Washington, D.C., area while bringing awareness to “period poverty” as an issue.

Hobson and Reilly launched this project with their Reynolds Service Fellowship, established in 2019 by Roland and Diana Reynolds, parents of India ’20. Understanding the burden period poverty inflicts, especially on underprivileged women, Hobson and Reilly wanted the project to have a direct impact on people’s lives.

Project Pink Tax has so far collected more than 16,000 menstrual hygienic products from its donation boxes, Amazon wishlist, and monetary contributions. “It is an amazing feeling to see the accumulation of period product donations, as they remind me each day that I am in fact making a difference in the lives of so many people in my community,” says Hobson.

Monthly, the items are dropped off at the Greater DC Diaper Bank’s warehouse, a local nonprofit organization they’ve partnered with to distribute the donations.

“This experience showed me the importance of fighting for and supporting those who don’t have the privilege of financially covering basic human needs. Project Pink Tax is just getting started, and we hope to continue to see the outpour of donations and volunteers so we can help lessen the financial burden on women,” says Reilly.

Genesee County Jail 
When Freya Moore ’22 saw a video of Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson taking off his helmet in Flint, Mich., to join the protests against police brutality after the death of George Floyd, she felt compelled to act herself. This July, she flew to Flint to volunteer alongside the sheriff, correctional officers, and paramedics at the Genesee County Jail for a week.

Moore observed the Genesee County Jail’s I.G.N.I.T.E. (Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education) program, a rehabilitation initiative designed to provide educational opportunities for inmates. She also assisted the nurses working in the jail’s medical wing assess prisoners and helped paramedics and police officers deployed to accidents and emergencies. 

The opportunity gave her insight into medicine and criminal justice, areas that she is particularly interested in studying. Seeing the impact of COVID-19 in an already overcrowded and understaffed jail made the experience even more striking.

“Behind the high walls and the barbed wire and inside America’s overcrowded jails are real people from all sorts of backgrounds and life experiences. Many of these people deserve the dignity and the opportunity to have a second chance at living a successful and meaningful life, too,” says Moore, who is planning on returning to Flint to continue her work next summer. 

This story originally appeared in the Fall 2021 edition of NCS Magazine.