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Community Spotlight
Local Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority addresses a little-known community need
They're 11, 12 and 13.
They Just Clothed Hundreds of Homeless Students
Middle school girls talk. About TikTok and JLab headphones, volleyball and song lyrics, hair and the vision of who they're becoming. They talk constantly — and joyfully — the way only girls on the edge of everything do.
But five young women in the Historic Triangle had something else on their minds.
At the Season III Finale of the Youth Leadership Institute (YLI), under Empower Our Families initiative of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated ©, Lambda Lambda Omega Chapter in Williamsburg, VA, these students stood before their community and described a project that most adults would rather look away from: the quiet, grinding reality of homelessness among their own peers.
Not the adults. Their peers. Kids aged 11 to 13, walking into school each morning carrying burdens no backpack was designed to hold.
The Need Nobody Wanted to Name
According to Virginia’s Program for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, their Project Hope - Virginia data, approximately 20,700 K-12 students in Virginia experienced homelessness in 2023-24 — an 18.6% increase from just over a decade earlier. Hundreds of those students live right here in the Historic Triangle. Local services exist: clothing donations get distributed, referrals get made.
But the YLI students discovered a gap so basic, so intimate, that it had slipped through nearly every safety net in place. New undergarments and socks — for their age group specifically — were almost never available.
It was both a problem and an opening.
522 Garments
The YLI participants didn't wait for someone older to fix it. They identified potential community advocates, drafted a letter introducing the program, named the need plainly and asked for help. Then they followed up in person, being sure to educate their audience while asking for support.
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The response was undeniable.
When the drive closed, the girls had collected 522 garments: 248 pairs of socks, 41 pairs of boxers, 37 bras and 196 pairs of underwear. The items were distributed to students at Lois S. Hornsby, Toano Middle School, James Blair, Berkeley and Queens Lake Middle Schools — delivered anonymously through school nurses to protect every recipient's dignity.
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One nurse wrote back. Her note spoke of the gratitude of the student recipients.
What a Leader Looks Like
At the Season III Finale, keynote speaker Tara Nesbitt — a Family Services Specialist with the Commonwealth of Virginia and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Lambda Lambda Chapter — put a question to the room: Who do you think a leader is?
The loudest person? The most popular? The one at the front?
No, she told them. A leader is the person who makes others feel seen. The one whose actions lift people who may never know their name.
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Alpha Kappa Alpha's Youth Leadership Institute is a youth-led leadership development program serving students ages 11–13, offering programming in STEM, the environment, culture and career exploration. The Empower Our Families initiative is one of six program pillars of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, a service organization with more than 390,000 members worldwide. This year's YLI cohort also volunteered at Grove Christian Outreach during the MLK Day of Service and engaged with Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated members at the College of William and Mary to explore career pathways.
