Homeless Period Project, Inc.

HPP has remained responsive to community needs by continuing to expand our network of distribution partners. When HPP was conceived in 2015, we initially intended to provide period packs solely to local women’s shelters and homeless shelters. It wasn’t long before we became connected with school nurses and teachers who reported that they saw far too many girls missing school during their period. This unfortunate scenario is confirmed by the 2017 Always Confidence & Puberty Survey which reports that nearly one in five American girls have either left school early or missed school entirely because they did not have access to period products. HPP provides period packs throughout the US to schools, shelters, food banks, housing authorities, disaster relief efforts, Indian Reservations, free medical clinics, etc. Our goal is to continue to give access to more communities, erase the stigma attached to these products through education and advocate for menstrual equity through legislation.

We continue to network and collaborate with other organizations of resources, businesses, groups and connect with individuals. Researching for ways to sustain the project through a grant received to have a feasibility study.

Individual donations – The Homeless Period Project has recruited nearly 50 businesses to serve as drop-off points for individuals wishing to donate menstrual products to our program. Requests for donations and links to our drop-off partners are frequently posted on our social media channels, of which we have over 8,000 followers and counting.

• Packing parties – HPP hosts more than a dozen packing parties throughout the year, where the public is invited to bring menstrual products and help assemble period packs to donate to our partners. Events range in size from a half dozen attendees to hundreds. In addition to the public events directly hosted by HPP, dozens of private packing parties are hosted across the state. Packing parties are often planned to celebrate birthdays, as a mission activity for Bible study groups, or as a charitable project for garden clubs, book clubs, Rotary chapters, or other civic organizations. We have also benefited from local businesses, college sororities, and churches hosting packing parties on our behalf.

• Direct purchase – We have negotiated agreements with Hospeco and IPS Packaging to purchase menstrual supplies and packaging at highly discounted bulk rates – allowing us to maximize our use of grant funds and financial donations to serve more women and girls-in-need. For our chapters across the state and other partners who distribute large quantities of period packs, we can ship complete period packs directly from our vendors to recipient organizations.

Since our first period party in June of 2015 to the end of 2019, we have donated almost 7 million period products in our home state of SC and throughout the US. One of our goals in 2019, was to donate to every middle school and high school in SC while still providing for those who were on our donation list and not to turn any request away. As we are still expanding into communities outside of SC, we have received a grant to have a feasibility study for a workforce development piece to add to our project resources.