Raising $2,500 during charity week, South students worked hard to make money that will go directly towards metro Detroit-based nonprofit Phoemale. The charity works in supporting women who have suffered from domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, and homelessness.
Media Coordinator for Phoemale Nancy Derringer said the organization works directly with women who have met various hardships and are trying to get back on their feet.

“Our goal, then and now, is to help individual women who are struggling, working on a path to improve their lives, but have a gap in resources that other sources of help can’t fill,” Derringer said.

Derringer describes how Phoemale goes above and beyond compared to other charities, providing extra amenities that other charities couldn’t.

“I like to tell people that there are plenty of charities that will help you with food, clothing or shelter, but not many will find you a good used car,” Derringer said. “That’s not all we do, but we’ve found several for the women we help.”

Derringer explained that despite the efforts by everyone at Phoemale, they can not help everyone and have set out certain criteria to meet for anyone looking for help.

“Our criteria are that applicants must be survivors of one of four separate traumas (sexual assault, domestic abuse, homelessness or human trafficking), be working on a way back, have a plan, and have that aforementioned gap,” Derringer said.

Grosse Pointe South is the first school to have supported Phoemale, and South Students have come out in full force for the Charity.

“We raised about $2,500, all of it [will go to Phoemale],” Claire Blake said.

Student association president Claire Blake said Phoemale turned out to be an easy choice for charity week, as it was a good cause and it was local.

“I chose Phoemale because I knew the family that started it, it was a local Grosse Pointe family,” Blake said. “(They have) kids at South and then I just knew about it and I thought the cause was really good, just their whole mission was really important.”

There were spirit themes for each day of the week, in an effort to get more people into the event, such as a pink-out, where everyone wears pink, or jersey day- where everyone wore some kind of jersey.

“We just wanted to get the students involved and spirited, and we thought that having fun days would just make them more interested in charity week,” Blake said.

To end off the charity week, there was a powderpuff game, an all-female football game which was freshmen and seniors versus the sophomores and juniors. The players behind it were all there for a similar cause, and just wanted to have fun.

“I wanted to bring more awareness to women and sports,” Bella Deveroux ’24 said.

Others interested in supporting this organization can find out more about how to help on their website www.phoemale.org.