Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast: New Orleans Community Outreach and Tulane Campus Involvement
By Katie Craig
During the summer of 2023, I worked with Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) as a Public Affairs Intern at their New Orleans location. As a part of their public affairs department, my responsibilities were around community event planning, volunteering, and student outreach and involvement research. During the first few weeks as an intern, I focused primarily on researching effective ways to get New Orleans and local community members aware of and involved with PPGC. Planned Parenthood offers many resources, from physical health checkups to sexual healthcare and outreach education programs. I sought new ways to familiarize community members with the PPGC platform and its goals. I developed spreadsheets with information on upcoming summer festivals, health fairs, and community events that I felt PPGC New Orleans would like to be a part of. Throughout my research process, I expanded my communications skills as I had to email many local organizations and reach out to event organizers about various sponsorship possibilities. Advocating for the involvement of PPGC within New Orleans allowed me to become more familiar with all of the resources that Planned Parenthood offers and feel more involved in the community.
Further into the summer, I was able to attend a couple of events as a PPGC volunteer and advocate. One of the first events I attended was the Back to School, Back to Football Health Expo at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center in July, hosted by the New Orleans Saints and AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana. The event was an all-day tabling event where local families came with their children to receive school supplies and information on health education from various local organizations. The event was my first time tabling with PPGC, and I was very excited to discuss the resources and educational opportunities with students and their parents. I was delighted with the number of parents interested in getting involved with PPGC, and the students enjoyed spinning our question wheel to win PPGC merch. I noticed even the older teenagers seemed very enthusiastic to learn more about reproductive health and sexual health centered around safety and consent.
As the summer continued, I shifted my research towards targeting the Tulane student population. I spoke with the prior PP Generation Action Intern (the public affairs internship offered during the school year) regarding their recommended
ways to involve students through on-campus efforts. We discussed which prior on-campus events and tabling should continue in the fall and new ideas that were in the works previously. I compiled a list of Tulane organizations and groups I felt PPGC should get involved with. I gathered some ideas for Fall tabling events and mapped the resources and time frames. The process of planning the events allowed me to get creative and even reach out to students about what they would attend and pay attention to. My most recent work has been dedicated to on-campus voter registration and sexual health tabling to get students registered to vote and informed about the PPGC resources and educational tools. As an intern with PPGC New Orleans, I have expanded my research and creative thinking tools by working with community members and gathering input from Tulane students. I am excited to continue my work on the fight for reproductive rights in the fall by spearheading various Tulane on-campus tabling and community events!