I was a sophomore in high school the first time I heard about Aunt Flow. It was 2021, and I was listening to the podcast, “The Pitch.” After hearing the CEO, Claire Coder, talk about period equity in the workplace, I knew that I wanted to get Aunt Flow dispensers in my high school no matter what. Here are some of the reasons I knew we needed to join the Menstrual Movement:
First, my school has a huge socioeconomic gap, with many students in different financial situations. That was my number one reason for wanting the dispenser to be free and not coin-operated.
When I was in eighth grade, I completely bled through my pants. I had no products on me, the bathrooms didn’t have any products, and I didn’t know if the nurse had products. This is the second reason I knew my school needed Aunt Flow dispensers. I had to miss class because I had to keep asking my friends for a spare tampon. Since we were in eighth grade, very few people had anything and it took a while for me to go back to class and get situated. Not to mention, it was also super embarrassing.
That experience showed me how much of a negative impact not having products can have, regardless of your financial situation at home.
Not only that, but I could not wrap my head around the fact that schools aren’t required to have these essential hygiene products in bathrooms. So I decided to start in my school. I had to show my school administrators how detrimental it is not to offer free period products.
Period Poverty and Period Shaming
Period poverty and period shaming in schools are two issues I have been aware of and passionate about since I was fifteen years old. Aunt Flow menstrual product dispensers were the solution to those problems, but I didn’t know that yet. At that time, I didn’t even know how to fix it, and I just knew that I wanted to do something.
I got the opportunity to fix these problems through my Girl Scout Gold Award, an eighty-hour-long service project that benefits a group or community and aims to fix a specific issue.
Period poverty is when individuals do not have access to resources or products during a menstrual cycle, which can be caused by financial struggles or lack of availability of products in that region. Period shaming is the direct or indirect shaming by society of individuals for going through the natural process of menstruation. Putting free-vend period product dispensers in bathrooms tackles both those issues by allowing everyone to have free access to products during a menstrual cycle, and it promotes equity and comfort among individuals by showing that periods are a shared experience and allowing everyone to feel more comfortable in their own skin.
Let’s Go Back to the Beginning…
As I stated previously, I have been working on getting these dispensers in my school since my sophomore year of high school. In the winter of 2021 I reached out to Aunt Flow, a company based out of Columbus, Ohio that is dedicated to developing a solution to ensure businesses and schools can sustainably provide quality period products, for free, in office, school, and university bathrooms. They connected me with Josie, a member of the Aunt Flow team who worked with schools across New Jersey and she provided me with a ton of helpful resources, statistics, and data to help me better present to my school and truly helped get the ball rolling on this project.
With the support of the Aunt Flow team, I met with the superintendent Mike Adams and my principal, Karim Fisher, in the spring, and explained my project, my reasoning, and the proposed timeline for the project. They both approved the project, but we were heading into summer break, so they put a pin in the project until the next school year.
In the fall of my junior year I met with the interim superintendent Dr. Galasso and the principal again to ensure that I still had approval for this project, and also to discuss money. From there I met with principal Fisher on a regular basis to discuss the specifics of the project: money approval, where the products would be located, and who would install them and when they would get ordered. The final decision was to order four individual dispensers, four cases of 500 tampons, four cases of 500 pads, and four disposal units.
During this time I conducted a survey in my school, to ensure that the students who use the female restrooms would appreciate this project. We have roughly 400 female-identifying students, and 161 responded to the survey I sent out. Out of those 161, roughly 88% said they are or they know somebody who is negatively impacted by their period, i.e., lost class time, lost concentration, or overall disruption to learning. That matches with the national data I was given, and when shown to the schools, it finally proved to them that this is a real issue, and not something I’m making up, or basing on assumptions. This matched the national data I had seen, and when school officials saw this, they realized that menstrual equity is a real issue.
In December of that year, the purchase order form was sent off to the Board of Education, but it was held up due to a miscommunication between board members and the principal. The new Superintendent, Carla Bittner, entered the scene after the new year, and in the spring, the purchase order was finally approved, and the products were ordered.
The Aunt Flow order arrived in June, but with the school year ending in a few weeks, we decided to hold off on installing the products until the summer for the next school year. In July, the dispensers were installed, and in August, I personally filled up all the dispensers. Now, they’re completely ready for the upcoming school year!
It may seem like this project took a long time – and that’s because it did. I was not pleased about this, it required a lot of patience, and there were plenty of rants to my parents along the way. With the changing administration, miscommunications, and the COVID-19 pandemic, it took much longer than I had planned. I had originally planned for it to be done and wrapped up by June 2022, but it’s September and the final pieces are finally falling into place.
I am forever grateful that the administration came in with an open mind, and was willing to listen to the problem and was willing to fix it. My biggest fear was rejection, or a casual brush-off, because it was an all-male administration, and I didn’t know how they would react. But, they surpassed all my expectations and I have felt fully supported the entire time.
Flowing Forward With Increased Advocacy
Since getting the products in my school this summer, I have now shifted my attention to getting them to other schools in my county. I have one school confirmed as being committed to installing them after I presented them to their Board of Education, and I am scheduled to talk to three more schools in September about this issue.
Not only that, but I have gotten so much positive feedback from my community. I had an article published in the local paper about me and this project, and afterwards, I got a lot of texts from people saying they wish they had this in their schools.
This journey took me the better half of two years, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of my Girl Scout advisor, Tracey Dougherty, my principal, Karim Fisher, and of course, Josie and the Aunt Flow team, who helped me from start to finish.
Doing this project taught me so many important life skills: public speaking, patience, communication skills, the inner workings of schools and administrations, and long-term planning. Working on this project and advocating for myself was the best learning experience I could ask for.
I would ask all students to advocate for themselves and their schools and to have these uncomfortable conversations, because the outcome will be so much better than you could ever imagine.
