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KAYSVILLE — Julie Treadwell has always wished she was rich.
"I have spent most of my life wishing I were a millionaire," she said. "Every time there was a tsunami or an earthquake or something tragic, I could drop a million bucks and say, 'Here, help.'"
Treadwell never won the lottery. She's not a millionaire and, according to her, she doesn't even have the sort of skills she'd like.
"I wish I were someone who had mad skills like a doctor," she said. "Go down and do cataract surgery. Or I could do dental work."
Treadwell has a passion for helping those less fortunate, in particular, those in the developing world. But she's always had trouble figuring out how.
"I don't have any of those skills," Treadwell said. I'm like a peon from Fruit Heights, Utah."
A "peon" who's in charge of an entire factory — a temporary factory set up at Davis High School, geared to bring change.
"They think they've got AIDS," Treadwell said. "In most of these countries we're going to, especially in Africa, when a young girl bleeds, she thinks 'I've got AIDS.'"
She said this is due to a lack of education and understanding.
"Women are considered second-class citizens because they bleed," Treadwell said.
This leads to a lack of opportunities and, ultimately, to poverty.
"There are so many girls who are kept out of school when they are on their monthly cycle," said Treadwell. "If they have missed a week out of every month, they cannot catch up. They drop out of school, they're married early, they start having children early. We're trying to stop that cycle which turns into poverty."
Treadwell's temporary "factory" hopes to change that. She and a group of hundreds are making washable, reusable feminine hygiene kits. It's all part of the international "Days for Girls" program, which gives the kits to girls in the developing world, along with a crash course in how their bodies work.
Treadwell, helped by the Kaysville Rotary and a constant flow of volunteers, is getting a lot of attention. Their event was attended by Celeste Mergens, the founder of Days for Girls, who came in from Washington. Treadwell said seeing Mergens at an event is extremely special.
"This is such a phenomenon here," said Mergens. "Days for Girls in Utah has over 30,000 volunteers. That's phenomenal by any measure in any community."
All thanks in part to a "peon" from Fruit Heights.
Treadwell may not be a millionaire, but she's using the skills she has to make a change.
"I realized it doesn't matter if I work on this for five minutes cutting string," she said. "I can change the life of a girl on the other side of this world. Me, a peon here, can do something that changes their lives. And that is huge."
To learn how to get involved with the Days for Girls program, visit daysforgirls.org.
