Juliet Kim’s (9) morning was off to a nerve-wracking start. After complications with organizing a list of female staff members and a growing worry that she hadn’t ordered enough flowers for everyone, Kim became concerned that the extensive planning she’d done for the first Women’s History Month event of the year– giving flowers to all the female staff members on campus–wouldn’t pan out as she’d imagined. However, with each staff member she visited, March 10, and each smile that bloomed across their faces as she handed them purple carnations, Kim said that the two weeks of sleepless nights she’d spent planning this event felt worthwhile.

This year for Women’s History Month, ASB is creating weekly informational posters, hosting a month-long hygiene product drive for Rachel’s Women’s Center, and featuring female-run clubs on campus.

As a culture commissioner and first-year ASB student who joined the class at the start of the term, Kim drew inspiration for this month’s events from ASB binders documenting events from former years. 

“We wanted to make sure that we could keep some of the events from previous years that we liked while adding new events we thought students could enjoy,” Kim said.

Kim focused this year’s celebration around women’s suffrage, inspired by her visit to the Center for Colorado Women’s History over ski week. Seeing the informative displays in Denver led Kim to decorate schoolwide graphics with newsprint patterns and the Women’s Social and Political Union’s emblematic color: purple. 

“I feel we’ve made immense progress in previous years in terms of having better equality in female representation in media or in sports, so I wanted to celebrate that this month,” Kim said. “I wanted every informational poster or event to feel like something people could relate to, which is why I highlighted films like ‘Hidden Figures’ or ‘Enola Holmes’ in the posters.”

In addition, ASB collaborated with a student-run non-profit organization, Coastal Charms, to arrange days for the founders to sell their exclusive Women’s History Month jewelry collection in the plaza. 

Founders Kiera Doan (11), Charisse Ho (11),  and Emily Nguyen (11) sold jewelry, phone charms, necklaces, and earrings in the plaza during lunch, March 6 and 9.

“We were excited when [Kim] reached out to us because this became another way for us to help the community and others around the world,” Nguyen said. “It was a big stepping stone for us because we started as a school project, but we’re happy we’re able to fundraise for a new cause this month.”

Rather than donating their profits to clean water organizations this month, Coastal Charms will be donating all proceeds to The Malala Fund, which is an organization geared towards ensuring that women all around the world have access to education.

“We’re really fortunate to be able to receive an education here in the U.S., but some people in other countries are not able to have that same opportunity,” Ho said. “We’re very lucky to be able to do whatever we can to help and advocate for people who are not as privileged and fortunate as we are.”

According to Doan, Coastal Charms hopes to use its platform this month to raise awareness for student initiatives in fundraising. She and her co-founders said that they hope to continue the non-profit by recruiting new members for the upcoming school year. 

“We are so grateful to have such a supportive community at Westview [and] we want to thank everyone who came to support,” Ho said. “I feel like everyone at Westview is very tight-knit and we help one another out, and we want to be able to use Coastal Charms as a way for Westview students to share that connection.”

As for Kim, planning the Women’s History Month events this year sparked a new goal for her: to continuously ensure that ASB’s events make Westview students feel seen and appreciated.

“ASB strives to advocate for everybody on campus, so I hope that people feel recognized by the events we’ve planned this month,” Kim said. “I want to continue to make events inclusive and interactive.”