CURRENT POSITION Senior Young Adult Librarian, 3, Brooklyn Public Library, NY  DEGREE MLIS, Pratt Institute, 2004 DEGREE Six months of pandemic lockdown left Kearns-White depressed, bored, lonely, and burned out. Then she discovered the K-pop group BTS, and they reinvigorated her. FOLLOW Twitter @Rakisha72; bklynlibrary.org/cycle-alliance; goodreads.com/rakishabpl Photo by Gregg Richards, Brooklyn Public Library

Free Cycle

In 2018, a young Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) patron began menstruating unexpectedly. They approached two male employees before receiving help from Rakisha Kearns-White, a senior librarian who offers puberty workshops at the library. Kearns-White learned that BPL’s bathrooms lacked much-needed menstrual protection products and that many youths cannot afford or access menstrual hygiene products privately.

Kearns-White established the Cycle Alliance, a teen advocacy group that fights period poverty and the stigma of menstruation. Since spring 2020, more than 170 teens have attended workshops, helped with distribution days, or volunteered for Cycle Alliance programs. The Cycle Alliance has partnered with international and local organizations to offer period-product distribution days and safe-sex workshops, giving out 200 period kits since 2021. In 2023, BPL’s Youth Wing began offering both the Period Pantry, stocked by in-kind product donations of menstrual pads, tampons, incontinence protection, and menstrual cups, and an official condom distribution site in partnership with New York City’s Health Department. Product dispensers in staff and public bathrooms provide free supplies across all 61 branches of the BPL system. Kearns-White also spearheaded a postcard-writing campaign asking federal representatives to make diapers and menstrual products electronic benefit transfer–eligible.

“Rakisha embodies the role of librarianship in improving access to essential information and services, particularly those withheld because of discomfort, stigma, or bias,” says Lisa Goldstein, division chief of BPL’s Central Youth Wing. Kearns-White has a specific reason for that approach: “When I plan programs for teens, I’m planning programs for my two children.”