Home Campus & Community Helping Women. Period.

Helping Women. Period.

by Rachel Burke

When you hear of donations, you usually think donating money, food or even time to people who are in need. Something most people don’t think of donating is feminine hygiene products. Tampons and pads are necessities for women, and most people take their access to them for granted. They are relatively expensive, and yet, so underappreciated by people who can afford them.

The reason this is not seen as an important issue is because menstruation is not something people typically want to think about. It’s deemed as this unclean, taboo process that everyone should try to hide as much as possible. The truth is, menstruation is natural and something we all need to be educated on because it’s important. It is what makes having babies possible and should not be considered a strange, disgusting topic. Even women who can afford tampons and pads try to be as discreet as possible when carrying them to the bathroom or checking them out at the store. Imagine how much harder this has to be for homeless women to try to get jobs or children in poverty to get through a day of school without having the necessities to stay healthy and comfortable.

Blackburn has a program called “Basic Bins” that offers free hygiene products to students who cannot afford them. This program was initiated by the Board of Trustees, but alumni regularly donate to keep the funds available. Students can request these items from their resident assistant (RA), resident director (RD), any professional working in the student life office or they can request items confidentially using their website: https://blackburncollege.formstack.com/forms/basic_bins_item_request. The items listed on the site include shampoo, conditioner, razors, body wash, lotion, tampons, maxi-pads, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, laundry pods, dryer sheets and microwavable snacks. There is also an “other” option where students can fill in what else they need.

These packages are put together by a staff member in the Student Life office. Interim Vice President and Dean of Students Abbey Hardin said, “Since August, we have recorded 49 unique users of the program, and since August we have filled 115 requests.” She also said that they filled 152 requests in the previous academic year. The website and the student life office do not track the names of the students who request these items, but Hardin said the Board of Trustees requested that they use a confidential system to track the number of unique users.

Tampons are not eligible for food stamps and are not considered necessities so we need to end the stigma and behind periods and provide them to women nationally

If you do not need these things but still want to help, there are many ways you can do so. There are organizations where you can donate your money online, and there are plenty of ways to start your own donation drive for tampons and pads. Something in the community you can do is donate to the Oasis Women’s Shelter in Alton, the closest women’s shelter to the campus. Oasis Women’s Shelter Client Service Coordinator Marcy Jacobs explained that “Most of our clients are poor and can’t get diapers or feminine hygiene products with their food stamps.” Jacobs said they get some donations of tampons and pads, but not much. If you’d like to drop off a donation, they always accept them at any time as long as you call in advance. If enough people offer to donate, the school could even start its own collection box on campus and donate mass amounts at a time.

This is not something specific to the United States; it is a problem all over the world. It starts with basic items like tampons and pads, but it needs to extend beyond that to ending the stigma on menstruation and furthering education on basic women’s health world wide. However, charity starts at home and there are steps being taken in the school and the community to provide feminine hygiene products for women. While nobody can single-handedly solve this problem, even a single donated box of tampons can help.

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