Josephine Juarez

Care kits including pads, deodorant, soap and lip balm are assembled.

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) and Tarrant To and Through (T3) hosted a women’s care kit event to donate to a local women’s shelter on Feb. 25.  

The event, held at Lou’s Place, was hosted by AAUW, the nation’s leading voice promoting equity and education for women and girls, in collaboration with T3, a local partnership of school districts, colleges, universities, employers and organizations. . The collaboration hoped to give T3 scholars a chance to complete their required volunteer hours, while also making connections with fellow TxWes students.  The kits included deodorant, underwear, menstrual products and other hygiene items that the shelter requested. 

Elsie Nunez, junior finance major, AAUW treasurer and T3 ambassador, spoke about how events like these can give others a different perspective.  

“You know, regular soap, shampoos, things like that, I could just buy that at the store. Some women aren’t able to do that; they don’t have the funds, they don’t have help from anybody else. I feel like that’s really an eye-opening moment,” Nunez said.  

Isabel Payan, senior marketing major and T3 ambassador, shared a similar point of view.  

“I think we kind of forget what others go through a lot. I’ve been through my fair share of struggles as well, but this is like, oh, I didn’t think people needed deodorant, underwear, things that we get used to because we have it every day,”  

Payan spoke about how the collaboration came to be.

“One of our other [T3] ambassadors is an intern at one of the women’s shelters that we’re helping out and donating to,” Payan said, “We came up with this idea because for our scholars at T3, for the program, they need volunteer hours and this just helps get through that when we do our events,” 

Senior accounting major and AAUW President Katherine Hernandez shared a bit about the planning and execution of the event, and what she hopes to improve in the future.  

“I think overall the main issue to tackle is trying to increase our participation and the people that can come over to our events and help out,” Hernandez said, “So I think  a solution for that is being able to improve our marketing to make sure students are more aware about the events that we have.”  

Another problem when planning was when to hold the event.  

“A lot of times people are commuters or they have jobs, so it’s kind of difficult putting a certain time and date to see, okay, when are students available” Nunez said.  

Hernandez understands the busy schedules but wants students to come help as much as they can.   

“Hopefully next time you can join us, you don’t have to come here for the whole one hour, one hour and a half, you can come for a couple of minutes.” Hernandez said.