KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A University of Missouri-Kansas City student is asking for the city's help to give the future a glimpse of what life was like for women in 2024.
Laila Stevenson is a first-year student at UMKC studying communications. Stevenson was researching UMKC's Women Center's founding director, Ruth Margolin, when she found out there was a time capsule put together in the 80s honoring women at that time.
"We couldn't find anything, we couldn't find the location, the date or anything about where it could be buried, so I took it on myself to do some investigating," Stevenson said. "I found someone, and she basically told me that they didn't get to bury the time capsule because someone put a Coke can [in it] and it destroyed everything."
In response, Stevenson decided to recreate the idea. She has asked for donations such as books, letters, photos, shirts, video messages and other artifacts that will help preserve women's history for the future.
Stevenson and the center are gathering artifacts until the end of March.
"I'm really grateful and just appreciative of being from this time and being a woman," Stevenson said. "There's so much going on, and women are still fighting to this day for equity. I just really hope it keeps going until we get to where we want to be."
Thus far, Stevenson said the response has been great. Some of the most popular items donated are KC Current shirts and player autographs, symbolizing the opening of the first purpose-built stadium for a women's sports team.
"I feel like it's such a big time for Kansas City and women, we literally have the first-ever women's soccer stadium," she said. "And there's so much going on in Kansas City; women are really doing great and powerful things in Kansas City."
Anyone interested in donating to the time capsule can do so through the UMKC Women's Center until the end of the month.
The capsule will be kept inside the center, and an official sealing ceremony will take place in April.
—
