On June 7, Holly Sanchez wrote this tweet.
Facebook posts spread awareness but they don't change policies. We can work harder. We can do more.
The next day, this tweet started a movement.
Buy an extra box of pads/tampons & donate to a homeless shelter near you. These items are so often overlooked.
After calling attention to this seriously underfunded issue, U by Kotex invited Holly to help start Power of the Period, the first-ever national period product drive in the United States. Participants are collecting hygiene products and dropping them off at their local homeless shelters. U by Kotex and DoSomething.org promised to donate 75 boxes of product to the local homeless shelters of the top five collectors. So far, more than 165,000 products have been donated, and people are really getting into it.
U by Kotex commissioned a Harris poll that determined that only 6 percent of respondents had ever donated feminine hygiene products to a homeless shelter, a problem especially considering the urgency of the issue. In conversation with Vice, "Grace Wore, a support worker at Women at the Well, a charity drop-in center for homeless women, says the "embarrassment factor" means women often find it awkward to seek help." Considering the embarrassment of asking a stranger for a tampon and the exorbitant price of what is considered by many governments to be a "luxury" product, menstruating homeless women have made do with what they have (toilet paper or old clothing) or have resorted to stealing.
The stigma around the issue is one of the reasons Sanchez is most excited about her involvement with Power to the Period: she told Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, "Stigmas about periods are still out there, but the more we talk about our periods, the more it becomes normalized and for many of us, celebrated."
I'm a firm believer in not hiding my tampon as I walk through the office.
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