Oak Park Teen Raises Money to Create Period Kits for Homeless Women

For most of the students in Lily Alter’s freshman English class, writing a mock grant proposal was just another assignment.

For her, though, it was the beginning of a movement.

When asked to write the proposal as a learning exercise, Alter, a 15-year-old student at Oak Park River Forest High School, decided she was going to focus her assignment around providing feminine care products for homeless women and girls, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Almost immediately, she knew she wanted to bring her proposition to life.

“I do the assignment every year as a way to build more real-world writing and researching into the unit,” Lynn Gilbertsen, Alter's teacher, told the Tribune. “They explore a social issue they care about and brainstorm possible solutions to it in order to see that they have a lot more ideas and power than they think they do at 14 years old.”

Alter started a GoFundMe page for her cause before she even finished her English assignment. As of Nov. 21, the campaign, which collects feminine hygiene products and creates toiletry bags Alter calls “FlowKits,” has raised $8,445. People have donated as little as $5 and as much as $100, but it all adds up.

Alter’s initial goal was to raise $1,500 to create the kits, which would each contain 14 tampons, 14 pads, 14 panty liners, 14 sanitary wipes and a menstrual health pamphlet.

Now, her goal is $10,000.

“I read once about how it’s really hard to be on your period when you’re homeless,” Alter told the Tribune. “Tampons aren’t like condoms, where people give them out free at progressive stores or in sex-ed classes. Menstrual supplies are more necessary, but you can’t get them for free.”

Feminine hygiene products like tampons, pads and menstrual cups are, in fact, among the most requested items at food pantries and homeless shelters, the Tribune reported.

Alter partners with Breakthrough Urban Ministries in East Garfield Park and Housing Forward in Maywood to distribute the kits to girls and women in Chicago and its suburbs.

Alter said the first kit she gave out personally was to a young girl at the shelter at her church in Oak Park. The girl had to have been 12 or 13, she said, and was with her mom when Alter approached them.

“The girl hugged me, and I was so happy,” she said. “I felt like, ‘Man. I’m exactly like her. I was like her two years ago, and I’m pretty much just like her now.'”

With the growing funds, Alter’s team has been able to start producing incontinence kits as well, her GoFundMe page states. These include 20 bladder pads and 14 sanitary wipes.

On her site, Alter describes her story and the origin of her passion for this subject.

“The more I researched the issue, the more passionate I became about wanting to help women have access to this extremely basic need,” she wrote. “Your contribution will help a small idea make a big difference.”

At the bottom of the page, in the comments section, Alter’s teacher Gilbertsen left a note.

“I’ve never been more proud,” she wrote. “In my whole life.”

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Photo courtesy of Lily Alter, GoFundMe