Sophomore Spearheads “Hearts for Haiti” Service Project
Regina Dominican sophomore, Elizabeth Loeher spearheaded a service project at school called “Hearts for Haiti”, a drive where sports bras and sanitary pads were sent to a children’s soccer program in Haiti.
Loeher got involved after an idea from one of Regina’s basketball coaches, Trish Andrew. Andrew was also Loeher’s basketball coach at St. Francis Xavier in Wilmette. St. Francis Xavier has a sharing parish in Haiti. They wanted to collect sanitary pads for this sharing parish but thought Regina would be a more appropriate place to do so being an all-girls’ school. Loeher said, “Knowing how involved everyone is at Regina made me feel like this was something a lot of girls would contribute to. I decided to set up the drive.”
Loeher stated that through this process she learned a lot about the economic conditions in Haiti that make it hard for people to be able to afford necessities like sanitary pads. She also mentioned how this was a good learning experience for her in terms of learning how to set up a drive, publicize it and encourage people to get involved.
The after-school program, Hot Fotbol, says 20 percent of their players are girls and they hope to raise this number to 40 percent this year and to provide the girls an opportunity to break down socio-economic barriers and to create change through addressing common challenges. The girls cannot play without sanitary pads and sports bras, hence the importance of this drive.
The drive ran at Regina Dominican from February 21-24, the student body raised $245 through a “Jeans for Green Day” last week and filled an entire barrel of sanitary pads and sports bras that was shipped to Haiti with the help of the St. Francis Xavier parish.
For more information on the soccer program in Haiti, please visit hotfutbol.org
