UNITY Youth Highlight
Ally Gee approached Fort Lewis College’s annual food and basic necessities drive with a question about who was being overlooked. Food donations were important, but she saw a continuing shortage of menstrual products at the campus pantry and wanted students to have more choices in caring for their health.
The UNITY 25 Under 25 honoree partnered with Fort Lewis College’s Grub Hub pantry and Work Life Wellness Committee in Durango, Colorado, on the November 1–15, 2022 drive. Her focus was collecting reusable and gender-neutral menstrual products alongside other necessities.
UNITY’s 25 Under 25 cohort recognizes Native youth leaders whose community contributions reflect the organization’s commitment to holistic development. Gee’s project translated that purpose into a practical campus effort: identifying a gap, working with established partners, and encouraging support for students’ everyday needs.
Grub Hub offered food, hygiene supplies, menstrual products, and help applying for SNAP benefits. Gee wanted the drive to strengthen a resource already supporting students while drawing attention to items she believed were too often missing from donations.
“My focus with this event is to collect menstrual products that are reusable and gender-neutral in hopes that students will have options aside from one-time use products, like pads and tampons,” she wrote.
Her advocacy was also personal and culturally grounded. Gee described feeling judged by non-Native peers when she discussed menstruation and contrasted that experience with Diné teachings and ceremonies that recognize a young person’s transition into adulthood. She wanted conversations about menstrual health to include respect, accurate understanding, and room for different gender identities.
“I hope that with this event, I am part of the change in the narrative around how menstruation is viewed and how it’s talked about,” Gee shared. She also described wanting to learn more about teachings concerning people whose identities fall outside binary views of gender.
The project connects physical wellness with social belonging. Access to necessary supplies matters, but so does whether students feel comfortable discussing their needs and see those needs treated with dignity. Gee’s collaboration used a campus donation drive to bring those concerns into the same conversation.
Her update also celebrated being featured alongside fellow honoree Lily Painter in a Teen Vogue article by Kinsale Drake about Indigenous youth strengthening their communities. At Fort Lewis, her own contribution remained concrete: making a familiar service effort more attentive to the students and supplies that might otherwise be missed.
