By Abby Mahler
As a high school sophomore, Persi Coes ’25 co-founded her club WORTH (Women Organizing for Reproductive Help), which targets eliminating reproductive injustice in Philadelphia, such as period poverty. The club quickly became successful; the students were able to combat reproductive injustice and work towards achieving women’s rights in different communities of Philadelphia. They did so by working with local non-profit organizations, such as The Spot in Germantown, to hold period product drives. The most recent drive ended up raising over 28,000 products. Persi is currently a senior at Germantown Friends School. Here she discusses the process of starting a club as a sophomore, the goals and struggles involved with being a club leader, as well as the most memorable project her club has done.
How would you describe your club?
First, I'd say it's very inclusive. We work with other reproductive rights clubs at other schools, like SLA and Central High School. At school, we make posters, have meetings about drives, and have bake sales. It's less about outside logistics.
What sparked your interest in starting a club that targets eliminating reproductive injustice? So my co-founder and leader, Dalia Meisel, is one of my really good friends, and her mom is an OB/GYN. [Reproductive justice] isn’t a common topic of conversation at GFS, like women’s rights and that type of stuff, so we made a club with the intention of raising awareness and educating people, especially the guys in our grade. We would ask them about Roe v. Wade when it was being overturned and nobody really knew what was going on, which was upsetting because it’s such a pressing issue in our society. I think it's really important that everyone is educated on the issue because it does affect everybody.
What was one of the biggest struggles in starting a club your sophomore year?
At first, because we were underclassmen, it was such a big step up – a women’s rights club exists on campus. What? – Getting it started, getting recognition, and actually getting members to come consistently was a struggle for us. It got a lot easier over the years, and now that we kind of have an established brand, our club has more of an identity than it did sophomore year, [when] we didn't really know exactly what we wanted to work on.
What advice would you give someone who wants to start their own club on something they're passionate about?
Do it! Definitely do it. Don't wait for it. Get a really good advisor, one who is open-minded and is really supportive. Dalia and I have felt like we’ve been able to pursue whatever we want and do whatever we want because of Jared. He's just provided such a good support system for us, and having that is so important because having an adult who believes in you and is actually seeing you for what you want to do, is just so important when you’re a teenager. Also, just having fun with it, you can make it anything that you want it to be. If you're passionate about it and you’re excited about it, people will see that and also be excited about it.
Was there one local nonprofit or school that you liked working with the most?
I’d say for nonprofits, we worked with The Spot, which is a local menstrual hub in Germantown. We worked with this woman named Lynette, who is really connected with other reproductive rights organizations in Philadelphia. She works to help women in the local surrounding areas, and that was the biggest thing that we wanted to work on, too. What’s most important to us is raising money, raising products, and raising awareness for women in the local area, but also for women in Philadelphia in general. So with Lynette, we’ve been able to run like four successful drives, and the last one ended with us raising over 28,000 products. Working with her has been an amazing, incredible experience.
What was your favorite or most memorable project that your club has done?
Oh, that’s hard. I'd say the citywide drive that we ran in April—that was the one at The Spot. We first made a QR code that we posted all over the school; then we posted them in the city. So, people were just scanning them and sending Amazon box shipments of tampons and pads to us. On the day that we moved them all into my car, we were just dumbfounded. My car was literally full of period products. To see Lynette’s face and her other volunteers helping us—they were shocked to see such a big donation. They said it was the biggest donation they'd ever received, and I think that was a really important experience for us because it showed me that I could actually do something and I could make meaning from something that I wanted to do.
How have your goals changed as a club since starting WORTH in your sophomore year? Now that we've been able to run drives and establish connections with other schools, it's really helped us target what we need to work on. Period poverty is a really big issue in Germantown. and in Philadelphia as a whole, so it’s been important to us that we address that issue. In sophomore year, we did not know how to actually go about fixing that, and I think now we definitely have a much better grasp on how to address and solve some of the issues that we’re faced with.
If you could relive one grade in high school, what year would you pick and why?
I'd pick sophomore year, definitely, especially sophomore fall. It’s so important to take advantage of sophomore year because it's your last year before you have to do a bunch of stuff for college. Me and my friends all got really, really close, and we were able to have so many fun times during that year. I had really good relationships with upperclassmen—one of my best friends was a senior that year, and one of my other best friends was a junior. Having upperclassmen friends was so much fun for me because you get to know about other people’s circles and lives. That was really fun, and it’s a good way to get to know the rest of your community. It made me feel a little bit more comfortable and connected to GFS because I got to learn what happens in each grade. But I think, honestly, if you make the most of any year, it could always be the best one.
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