Associate Professor of Management Information Systems Dr. Lakisha Simmons read about period poverty in a national magazine, prompting her to ask several of her friends who work in Nashville schools about the issue. That conversation sparked a much larger discussion surrounding the significant challenge that some girls in Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) have accessing essential products.
After more research, Simmons learned that 43% of the students in MNPS are economically disadvantaged, and there are 11 middle and high schools on the district’s priority list. Throughout these schools, girls are missing upwards of a week of school each month because they do not have access to period protection products. That was all Simmons needed to hear — and The Nashville Period Project was born.
“I couldn’t sit back and do nothing knowing there are girls are missing school or class because of something out of their control,” she said. “I come from humble beginnings, but luckily my family was always able to provide what I needed. Period protection is a necessity. We may not all agree on the solution, but I wanted to do my part to help.”
Through her nonprofit, The Achiever Academy, Simmons set out to host a collection throughout the month of September and invited Nashvillians to get involved by donating period products to Metro students. Together, in just four weeks, the group collected more than 200,000 items.
With approximately 2,900 females at these 11 priority schools, Simmons is happy to be able to provide products for 2-3 monthly cycles, but she’s not done. “We will continue to raise awareness and facilitate donations for the girls most in need throughout our city,” she said. “These are our neighbors who need our help. Our work is not done.”
Chuck Hodgin, Lina Sheahan and Nicole Fox, three members of the Bunch Library faculty, volunteered on Sat., Sept. 22, at Norman Binkley Elementary School as part of Hands on Nashville Day. They spent the morning washing the interior windows of the school in an effort to help the custodial staff.
A number of students participated behind-the-scenes in the making of the event, working hand-in-hand all week with the production team. Junior Katie Kuhnash, a music business major from Centerville, Ohio, noted that this experience will help expand her professional network. “As PAs/runners, our main duty is to perform any task that the producers do not have time to complete, anything we can do to make their lives easier and make sure everything runs flawlessly.”
Banjo player extraordinaire and 1998 marketing alumna Kristin Scott Benson was recently named as the 2018 recipient of the 9th annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass.
“The first thing you do [in starting a company] is establish values-based leadership as a road map to where you are going to go and how you’re going to get there. Then every decision I make is around those values. We used to put our mission, vision and values on posters around the office, but then we decided that since those attributes weren’t going to change, we were just going to paint them on the walls!”
