Legacy Donor Spotlight: Alexa Renehan
Days for Girls International is blessed with many amazing donors, volunteers and supporters whose commitment to ending period poverty is unwavering. These individuals often work behind the scenes, affecting change in transformative ways.
One such individual is Alexa Renehan. Not only is Alexa a cherished legacy donor at Days for Girls, but she has also served as an invaluable volunteer for the past four years. We are enormously grateful for her support of our mission.
An Easy Decision: Becoming A Legacy Donor
When Alexa sat down with her estate attorney this past year, she wanted to make her mark on the world in a lasting, meaningful way. To her, that meant bequeathing part of her estate to Days for Girls. After witnessing firsthand the many ways in which Days for Girls changes the lives of women and girls worldwide, the decision was an easy one.
Alexa lists many reasons for her decision to include Days for Girls in her estate planning, including the altruism of our mission, the transparency of our leadership and our ability to set achievable, measurable goals that affect tangible change. But equally important is the impact that Days for Girls has had on Alexa's own life: filling it with passion and a strong sense of purpose.
“Becoming involved with Days for Girls in the ways that I have – like traveling into the African bush to areas without electricity and water, sometimes with a translator, to provide girls with feminine hygiene kits and educate them about menstruation and sexual reproduction – has been really incredible,” she says.
“At this point, I feel more fulfilled in what I’m doing than I ever have before. My involvement with Days for Girls has helped girls stay in school once they start menstruating, given them the opportunity to rise above the poverty into which they were born, and helped the women who are involved in our enterprises become financially independent.”
A Profoundly Rewarding Experience
Alexa first learned about Days for Girls in 2017, when she was asked to bring feminine hygiene kits to Africa on an upcoming trip.
She soon discovered the shocking reality that many girls do not have supplies to manage their menstruation – and as a result, are forced to drop out of school or resort to inhumane ways of managing their flow (like using dirty rags, leaves, plastic and even cow dung).
Alexa was impressed by all the ways in which Days for Girls met the critical needs of women around the world. Later that year, after serendipitously crossing paths with Celeste Mergens, she was inspired to come aboard as a volunteer. She has now served the organization in a number of capacities: from interviewing girls whose lives have been changed by DfG Kits and helping Enterprise leaders make their businesses more profitable, to using her legal background to obtain FDA clearance for DfG menstrual cups.
For Alexa, taking part in global DfG Kit distributions has been the most profoundly rewarding experience.
“Seeing girls so desperate for a way to manage their periods that they line up hours before our presentation begins…then watching their faces as they intently absorb every word spoken in the educational part of the presentation, and seeing the sheer joy they have after receiving their Kits, was literally life-changing for me,” she said. “Although at each distribution we are with the girls for just a few hours, we have given each and every one of them a chance for a more promising future that otherwise would never have been possible!”
Finding Purpose With Days for Girls
Since 2017, Alexa has participated in many more distributions across Africa – including in Tanzania, where she helped set up an Enterprise and establish a partnership with the Foundation for African Medicine and Education.
“Becoming involved with Days for Girls gave my life a purpose for which I had been searching,” she said. “I have been involved with many NGOs, but never any where the dollar for dollar contribution was so impactful. Bequeathing money to Days for Girls will ensure that my support will not end and females around the world will continue to have a chance for a better future.”
We are deeply moved by Alexa’s generosity and tireless efforts as a member of the Days for Girls family. Her journey is uniquely inspiring, but her desire to give back is shared by many. To join Alexa as a legacy donor, we invite you to consider making Days for Girls a beneficiary in your own estate planning. In doing so, you’ll give the ultimate gift of health, dignity and opportunity to women and girls for decades to come.
