BY ALISE CHAFFINS
Subscription boxes are popular. Watch any YouTube video or listen to any podcast and you will likely hear a pitch for a subscription box that is sponsoring the content.
What about a subscription box that encourages young girls in West Virginia by highlighting prominent Appalachian women?
Local nonprofit Libera is tackling that with a new social enterprise launching this month.
The Lila Bear Explor(her) Club is a new subscription box service being offered by Libera, a nonprofit organization serving women and girls in West Virginia.
Kelsey Riggi is heading up this enterprise, and she is excited to see how it can impact the young girls of the state.
“It is an inspirational and educational subscription box that features women and places from the Appalachian region and West Virginia,” she said. “It inspires them to love themselves, to love the planet, and love their community.”
While the boxes are targeted at girls, Riggi believes they are appropriate for any young person ages 7-12. The first box, called “Reach for the Moon,” focuses on Katherine Johnson, the West Virginia native who worked at NASA for 33 years and whose mathematical prowess was instrumental in launching the space shuttle program. She was the focus of the 2016 film “Hidden Figures” and Liberia members though she was the perfect person for the first box.
This project received funding largely because it is helping to serve youth who are aging out of foster care. West Virginia has the highest rate of youth per capita in foster care, and those aging out are at a high risk for homelessness, incarceration and addiction. One aspect of this social enterprise will be employing youth who are aging out of the foster care system.
Riggi said, “Whenever people are purchasing our boxes, they’re giving kids a fun and inspirational kit, but they’re also helping to fund Libera’s aging out foster youth, and providing employment opportunities to youth in Appalachia.”
Libera has been working with foster children in the state for the past several years offering “Love Packs” to children in foster care. These include age appropriate books on anxiety and depression, journals, videos on body safety, a stress ball and other items to help the child feel loved and safe.
The Lila Bear subscription boxes are separate from that program, but are still helping underserved children in the state.
This season, for any box that is purchased for a child, an additional box will be gifted to a child who is in an underserved area of West Virginia. Additionally, the website has a way for interested parties to donate a box directly to a child in need.
The first box will include a book about space by Bruce Betts, a buildable astronaut, stickers, a mini-magazine about Katherine Johnson, a family ticket to the Greenbank Observatory, ideas for activities that explore the state and more.
Boxes will begin shipping Monday and will ship anywhere in the U.S. They can also be picked up in Morgantown. Boxes are $30 each and there is a limited supply available. Boxes can be ordered at
lilabearexplorherclub.com.
