‘Period products are school supplies’ Nonprofit tackles period poverty in school

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Lysne Tait made a special delivery to Burton Elementary and Middle School in mid-August. She parked her cherry red van in the driveway, jumped out, and began unloading large boxes onto a dolly. One box read Honey Pot Non-Organic Everyday Pantyliners.

“At the beginning of the school year — August, September — is a big time for us to deliver products,” Tait said during an interview with FOX 17. “We work with over 80 schools in Michigan and try and get them free menstrual products so that they can have them on hand when our kids need them.”

Tait is the founder and executive director of Helping Women Period, a nonprofit tackling period poverty for women and girls in Michigan. She said last year they distributed 1.1 million products including pads, tampons, and pantyliners. This year, since January, they’ve distributed 1.3 million products.

On August 15, she dropped off six boxes at Burton.

Laura Arreguin was grateful.

“I actually found Helping Women Period through a Google search,” Arreguin said during an interview. “I had some parents come to me with questions about, you know, needing pads for both their daughters and themselves and they weren’t sure where to go and get pads.”

Arreguin, who’s Burton’s community school coordinator for Kent School Services Network, sent them an email, detailing her need for period products donations.

She stated that pads can be expensive and many families at the school can’t always afford them.

According to U.S. News and World Report, 98 percent of the students at Burton come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Even just that emotional stability of both the student and the family, because if you’re not feeling good, I mean, periods in general can sometimes be very painful,” Arreguin said. “They’re not the most attractive. Sometimes you don’t want to come to school. You don’t want to be out in public.”

Tait said in Michigan 400,000 women and girls live below the federal poverty line, and one in four students, who have periods, miss school when they don’t have proper period products. Once a student misses 10 days, the truant officer gets involved.

“When you can’t afford them people often use things that are not medically suggested: socks, t-shirts, toilet paper, those nasty paper towels at the gas station,” Tait said. “Or, they use the products that they do have for longer than medically suggested.”

Tait said this can lead to toxic shock syndrome and other infections, and girls can start having periods as young as 8 years old.

“This is a problem in our own backyard,” Tait said. “It’s not just developing countries with kids going to school because they don’t have the products they need. It’s right here.”

Arreguin said she’ll keep the period products in her office. Students can request them by either going straight to her, a teacher, and the school nurse. They’re given out in decorative bags to give the students some privacy. The girls will also get a menstrual calendar to help them tract their cramps and periods.

RELATED:‘No more tampon tax in Michigan’: Governor signs bill exempting menstrual products from sales tax

As for Tait, she continues to be shocked by the success of the nonprofit, which began in 2015. She said it’s 70 percent individual donor-funded. Honey Pot once delivered an entire semi-truck worth of products.

However, her goal is to get period products into every school and public space in Michigan so that a student’s learning isn’t hindered in any way.

“Period products are school supplies,” Tait said. “We want to make sure that they have all the school supplies they need so that they can learn and become productive members of society.”

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