L-LC Students Kick off New Semester with Annual Day of Service

ALBANY, N.Y. (Sept. 6, 2022) – Like many girls who grew up with access to menstrual products, Oroboghene Obaro-Ogbovoh never really thought about the connection between menstrual hygiene and school. 

But during her first couple weeks at the University at Albany, the freshman heard about the MoonCatcher Project, a Schenectady nonprofit that ships reusable menstrual hygiene products to girls and women around the world who can’t afford or otherwise access them.

“It’s not something I ever really thought about as being a barrier to school, but for these girls it is,” she said, explaining that many miss school or work during the week they’re menstruating. “It’s leading them toward lives that aren’t the lives they want — they can’t complete their education and they get married younger as a result.”

On Aug. 27, Obaro-Ogbovoh helped assemble materials for menstrual hygiene kits that MoonCatcher will be shipping to girls in India and Uganda. It was one of nearly a dozen hands-on community service projects that took place in the Campus Center last month as part of an annual Day of Service organized by the university’s Living-Learning Communities. 

The communities are an opportunity for freshman and new transfers to live and study together in residence halls according to their specific area of study or interest — such as business, medicine, law, politics, social justice and the performing arts. 

Roughly 250 first-year students, clad in custom shirts representing their community, attended the daylong event, which ended with deliveries to the local organizations. Projects included making hygiene bags and bagged lunches for Joseph’s House in Troy, assembling treats and toys for the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, making blankets for the Capital City Rescue Mission and Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless, mending books for the RED Bookshelf, and writing letters to active military members in partnership with SEFCU, to name a few.

Freshman Areya Gonzalez Hernandez was also drawn to the MoonCatcher project, but for personal reasons. Her mother grew up in rural Mexico and wasn’t able to afford period products, she said.

“She suffered growing up with very heavy periods for seven days every month,” she said. “So she would have to stay at home and wasn’t able to complete her education because of that barrier. So I’m just really grateful that we have the opportunity and resources to help out these girls in need.”

Martha Asselin, director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Service, said this year’s service projects were oriented around the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include gender equality. 

“I really felt like our students got a breadth of understanding about how even two hours of community service is really impacting change in the world around us, especially in our local communities,” she said.

More information about Living-Learning Communities can be found here.