Athens group aims to combat period poverty. 'Let's face it, tampons and pads are not cheap'

Areeba Hashmi sat outside the Tate Student Center at the University of Georgia along with six other tables. In front of her, a tri-paneled poster presented information about the Period Project at UGA, a student-led organization “committed to eliminating the period taboo and expanding access to menstrual care.”

Hashmi, the organization’s co-president, tabled at Tate this spring as a part of a week-long donation drive the Period Project at UGA organized with UGA’s Student Government Association.

The group looked to collect donations and period products to use for their menstrual kits, which it assembles and distributes monthly to 11 community partners. Aside from tampons, pads and liners, The Period Project offers additional supplies, such as ibuprofen and wipes to accommodate other effects of menstruation.

“Our kits are a mix,” Hashmi said. “It depends on what our community partners are asking for.”

The goal is to alleviate period poverty, which past co-president Madison Shelnutt described as the inability to afford products menstruators need during their periods. The organization recognizes that many people equate poverty with housing, clothing and food insecurity and don’t realize that menstrual products are a necessity as well.

The Alliance for Period Supplies reported in 2019 that more than 2.3 million menstruators between the ages of 12 to 44 live in Georgia. One in five live below the federal poverty line, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sets at $26,500 per year for a family of four.

In addition to the distribution of menstrual kits to the Athens community, the Period Project at UGA also hosts guest speakers, panels about reproductive health and workshops with the mission of providing access to education regarding menstrual health and equity.

“Beyond people feeling nervous to talk about their periods or things like that, there are actually very real, harmful implications of not talking about menstruation,” said Sophia DeLuca, a past co-president of Period Project at UGA. “If you don't have conversations about what's normal about a period or what you should expect, then you're not going to know if something is wrong right and if you need to seek medical attention.”

‘Tampons and pads are not cheap’

The Athens Nurses Clinic provides medical services for free to people experiencing homelessness, low-income members of the Athens area and people without insurance. Paige M. Cummings, the clinic’s executive director, said the community has appreciated the two-year partnership.

When the Period Project contacted the Athens Nurses Clinic, Cummings explained how its hygiene kits worked, consisting of items that were not covered by food stamps, such as soap, shampoo and razors. Menstrual care products are similarly not covered by food stamps.

The clinic has always tried to produce its own hygiene kits for patients when they had available supplies, she said, but it lacked products for the kits they offered to menstruating patients. The Period Project at UGA has supplied the clinic with about 40 to 50 kits per month, and it can request the type of products needed.

“Let's face it, tampons and pads are not cheap,” Cummings said. “We have amazing stories from our clients, and it’s just made a difference in their life because that amount of money they’re able to keep using for their family and not feel guilty that they need it for period products.”

Feminine hygiene product accessibility 'an equity issue’

In addition to the inability to purchase menstrual products with food stamps, Georgia has a 4% sales tax on menstruation products. State law considers them “luxury items.” The term “Pink Tax” describes how women’s products regularly cost more than men's. The “tax” costs women, on average, $1,300 a year, according to Bankrate.com.

Georgia STOMP (Stop Tax on Menstrual Products) is a coalition of organizations, including the Period Project at UGA, that address menstrual equity and period poverty through grassroots volunteer work.

Clair Cox, chair of Georgia STOMP, said the organization came together over the initial goal of passing a state tax elimination bill on menstrual products.

STOMP has made three separate attempts to pass legislation to eliminate the sales tax on menstrual products, most recently with Georgia House Bill 810. The bill aims to eliminate the tax on menstrual products because they’re defined as medical devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Cox said taxing them is discriminatory based on the equal protection clause of the constitution.

“Primarily women should not be forced to pay sales tax to support the state budget to the tune of about $10 million per year about something we have no choice over as it is a medical necessity and there is no male equivalent to,” Cox said. “It’s an equity issue.”

Shelnutt said she got involved with the Period Project at UGA because she looks at access to menstrual products as a basic human right.

“We're human,” she said. “At the end of the day no matter how anyone ends up in their situation, they don't deserve to not be able to afford menstrual products and to have an unsanitary or undignified experience."

Menstrual products are more than a health care issue, said Cummings, who like Cox, thinks it’s a matter of social equity. Cummings pointed out that women who face period poverty may not be able to attend school or work because they don’t have the proper products to adequately care for their menstrual cycle each month.

“When people donate to agencies that donate period products, really, it's helping women to be able to stand on their own two feet and continue to grow in their own selves,” Cummings said.

Resources available

These groups offer free menstrual products for those who need them.

• Athens Nurses Clinic | 706-613-6976, Email: athensnursesclinic.org

• Helping Mamas | Provides mobile distribution in metro Atlanta, but mobile distribution also includes locations beyond the metro area. Email: needhelp@helpingmamas.org

This story is written by students in the Covering Poverty project, which is part of the Cox Institute’s Journalism Writing Lab at the University of Georgia.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Lack of accessibility to feminine hygiene products drives period poverty