Kirra Crowley
Staff Writer
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Pictured here is the first club meeting for the 22-23 school year. Photo courtesy Gretchen Osborne.
The Cumberland Valley Pad Project is dedicated to helping women improve their menstrual hygiene. The club takes donations of pads and tampons to give a wide variety to the people who need the products.
Last year, 2022 CV grad Rusham Katoch was the president of the Pad Project. This year, Senior Ola Gradzka is taking charge of the club.
“I’m really excited. I always thought it was such a cool club and I wanted the opportunity to help steer it in a good direction and keep it going even when the original founders graduated,” Gradzka said.
The club has been successful the past few years and continues to grow in member numbers. Getting to grow the club's awareness in all ways is important to Gradzka. She also wants to get people more involved this year.
“I really want to be active on social media so that people are aware of our meetings and don’t feel any barriers to joining. I also want to incorporate a variety of meeting ideas to keep people engaged and ensure everyone feels okay asking questions,” Gradzka said. “I also try to get feedback from the members as much as possible by sending polls and communicating in our Groupme so that everyone has a voice,” Gradzka said.
With a new year and a new president comes new ideas. Gradzka plans for big things this year and wants to enforce them from the beginning.
“I believe in keeping the original message and function of the club the same, but I want to reinforce its status as a service club. A lot of people join clubs to pad (pun not intended) their resume for college and I want this to be a club that is active in the community. This means doing lots of projects and outreach and trying to get people as involved as possible,” Gradzka said.
The year has only begun and big things are already starting for the Gradzka and the club. There are a lot of things to come and the future looks very bright for the CV Pad Project.