Loretta:
I got involved in the TEA Fund fresh into college when I was 18 and getting into feminist activism. I was in a meeting for my college’s chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and someone made an announcement about starting a fund to help women who couldn’t afford to pay for their abortions. So I signed up, because I was pro-choice and it was clear to me that this was an injustice, and what is activism but working for justice. I’ve been on the board for the TEA Fund for three years. I’ve been a volunteer for fundraisers and intake, I’ve been a student liaison, I’ve worked on planning and development, I’ve designed technical documents, and I’ve been a donor. And I am now the first student intern. I’ve learned more through being a part of the TEA Fund than I could in any class. Working for the TEA Fund has had a huge impact on me and my development as an activist, a feminist, and a professional. This is one of the biggest learning experiences and most important things I’ve ever been a part of. The other board members are my role models, heroes, mentors and friends, and I am so honored to work with them to make reproductive rights a reality for all women.

Camille:
I have served on the board of the TEA Fund for the past two years. During my first year as a board member, I also worked as an intake volunteer, returning calls from clients who needed the TEA Fund’s help. Many of us pro-choice activists are well-versed in the history of reproductive rights in this country–although I am too young to remember when abortion was illegal, of course I’ve heard the stories of fatal back-alley procedures before Roe. I’ve always been grateful for the reproductive justice my feminist foremothers fought so hard for, and I travelled to D.C. in 2004 for the March for Women’s Lives to affirm the vital importance of keeping abortion legal. But my work with the TEA Fund has revealed to me how just keeping abortion legal will never be enough. Working for the TEA Fund is a frontline experience–talk to a woman who is very poor and very young, who already has children, who is homeless or abused, and you realize quickly how vast the gap between what’s legal and what’s possible is for some women. I hope that my work with the TEA Fund will see a future in which reproductive justice draws so much financial, political, and practical support that no woman will have to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

JPG:
Dear TEA Fund,

[I'm so happy] to volunteer for the TEA Fund. I am itching to get beyond my short-term personal ambitions and find the most effective way to destroy sexism. Volunteering has been important in my own development and the growth of my determination and courage.