Nonprofit to provide free tampons for city schools students

SisterFriend wants to ease stigma about menstrual hygiene

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Every week, school nurse Gwendolyn Lane puts a package of menstrual pads and one of tampons in a basket in her office at Brashear High School, and every week, she has to refill it two or three times because so many students take them.

Menstrual hygiene products, a basic need for half the world’s population, can be expensive, and they aren’t covered by federal assistance programs. At schools like Brashear, where a large portion of the student population is low-income or speaks English as a second language, they are in high demand.

“The girls know it’s just understood that they can come in and take it without saying it in front of other people,” Ms. Lane said. “You’ll see them at the end of the day on a Friday taking several. Sometimes kids are taking them home because they don’t have them at home.”

A new partnership between Pittsburgh Public Schools and a local nonprofit aims to remedy that, and provide enough menstrual hygiene products that students don’t have to worry about going without or being embarrassed to take what they need.

“If you don’t have what you need, how would you feel if you’re in your classroom and you have your period?” said Tamara Whiting, founder and executive director of SisterFriend, which provides menstrual hygiene items to “vulnerable” populations, like those in prisons or homeless shelters, and aims to eliminate the stigma surrounding menstrual health.

Starting next school year, SisterFriend will stock closets at four Pittsburgh schools with its signature brown paper bags containing 10 tampons, pads or a combination of both, as well as panty liners, panties and bras. Students will be able to access the closets and get the kits — which should each last a couple days — for free.

“Depending on what your flow is, you can take two bags, you can take three bags. It’s all in one, so the student doesn’t have to keep going back,” Ms. Whiting said. “It makes it a more comfortable transaction for them.”

“There’s so much that can weigh on a young lady, or a young person, and we just want to be a small part