Earlier this month a delivery truck arrived at Liberty Middle School in southeast Aurora with dozens of boxes of menstrual pads.
There were 75,000 pads altogether, enough to keep the middle school’s bathrooms stocked for a year, according to the two local Girl Scouts who led the effort and earned the top honor for middle school aged scouts in the process.
“Middle school is a specifically hard time for females — and menstrators in general — because they’re getting their periods, like, just then,” said Annaliese Austin, now a ninth grader at Grandview High School.
The project stemmed from learning about menstrual care items being out of reach for millions of poor girls, women and non-binary people, said Lauren Campbell, also a ninth grader at Grandview High School.
In 30 states, including Colorado, menstrual care products like pads and tampons are taxed as a luxury item, and they aren’t covered by government grocery assistance programs, like SNAP or WIC.
A 2019 survey of low-income women in the U.S. found that nearly two-thirds couldn’t afford menstrual hygiene products.
Taking on a big problem like period equity isn’t easy. Entire organizations are dedicated to the cause, but Austin and Campbell were eager to start in their own community. They began the project as middle school students at Liberty just before the pandemic began.
“There was a dispenser in every bathroom, but they were broken, and they didn’t have pads in them,” Campbell said of her middle school. “So the only way you could get a pad was by going to the nurse… It’s embarrassing even when it shouldn’t be, but because there’s been a generational stigma on it, it is considered embarrassing, especially for people who are just starting their period. Going to the nurse and getting a pad takes you out of school for longer, and you have to figure it all out. It’s just kind of a hassle. So we figured we would just make it easier on students.”
The girls also realized beyond the hassle of going to the school nurse period poverty might also be a reality for some students at the school.
“One of the three elementary schools that feeds into Liberty is a Title 1 school, meaning that they have less funding, and the people there are more likely to be lower income families,” Campbell said. “So we felt that that could help benefit the students in those communities as well.”
The scouts raised $1,200 for new dispensers and menstrual care product brand Always donated the 75,000 pads. Acquiring the supplies came by trial and error, said Campbell, but after a few messages to an Always company staffer on LinkedIn they were able to reach their goal, which they set by doing some simple calculations of how many pads would be needed for a middle school for a year.
The two hope their project will inspire others to do more to improve access to period products or at least encourage “not adding to the stigma that exists,” Austin said. “Because that’s just not helping anything.”
Campbell said she’d like to go on to work on period equity for her Gold Award project while in high school. Her mission is to work with a state legislator to end the state’s tax on period products.
Some municipalities have already done so, including Aurora, which this week gave the final approval for exempting period products from city sales tax.
Council member Allison Hiltz, who sponsored the ordinance, previously said the ordinance would help to address period poverty locally.
She applauded the work by Austin and Campbell.
“The project they have undertaken is incredibly impactful. As teenagers, they not only grasp the concept of inequity, but have taken meaningful steps to address it,” said Hiltz. “We are lucky to have them in Aurora and I’d love to support their work in any way I can.”