Cheyenne Sisak ’25, a criminology major from Gainesville, Virginia, is helping local students go to school with confidence, no matter what time of the month it is through Products Empowering Personal Dignity.
As she describes it, the initiative provides personal hygiene products to “people who get periods” — more specifically students in 30 local elementary, middle, and high schools. It’s also Sisak’s Bonner legacy or capstone project.
As defined by The Corella & Bertram Bonner Foundation, which funds Bonner Programs at 65 U.S. colleges and universities, a Bonner’s capstone project “serves a civic purpose” and “can allow the student to do something that builds the capacity of a local community or promotes awareness and action on a social issue.”
Products Empowering Personal Dignity grew out of work Sisak was already doing at Park View Community Mission, her Bonner service site. Bonners typically work at a single site for all four years in the program.
At Park View, which is located about a mile from the University of Lynchburg campus, Sisak works with the Food for Thought program, which provides take-home food bags to schoolchildren on Fridays. After hearing that teachers and school nurses were buying menstrual products for students with their own money, Sisak decided she could help there, too.
Products Empowering Personal Dignity is a collaboration between Sisak and Park View and the Period Access Distribution — PAD — Center, a Junior League of Lynchburg initiative. The Junior League provides funding for Sisak’s project and Park View provides storage space for menstrual products the Junior League distributes to area sites.
“The main goal is to uplift people who get their periods and let them know we’re there to support them and [we] respect them, and we’re able to help them get the proper resources and items that are needed,” Sisak said. “It’s a natural thing, and it happens. I don’t want people to be embarrassed. I want them to have that dignity.”
Since last fall, Sisak has delivered 50 to 80 packs of menstrual products to school nurses each quarter. “The bags are supposed to be enough to hold [students] over … for a few months,” she said.
“We deliver [them] to the nurses because we want to keep that confidential. I made a flier to hand out to the schools and they hung it up in the bathroom. The nurses have a Google Sheet to fill out. The main goal is it’s sustainable after I graduate. I want to make sure it lasts.”
After she graduates in May, Sisak plans to pursue a master’s degree in social work, followed by a career as a court or victim advocate. She said her leadership, communication, and critical-thinking skills have improved through Bonner and through her legacy project, in particular.
“I feel more confident in my ability to execute certain tasks and jobs, and in talking with others,” she said, adding that “sometimes there’s a little bump in the road and you have to think of something quick.
“When we were repacking some of the stuff, we ran out of some of the tampon sizes and quick thinking was to go to the store or repackage it in a way that it would be the same amount. … The main focus is to provide products for the students when and where they need them.”
