When Elesia Glover thinks of period poverty, her mind goes to one particular family. It’s a single-parent household with three daughters. The girls’ menstrual cycles synched, but their parent could afford period products for only one of them. Each day of their periods, the girls took turns: One went to school, two stayed home.
“I can only imagine what that must feel like for a parent,” says Glover, a Charlotte period poverty advocate. “Think of the academic aspect, too. What does that mean for students who miss full days in class because they don’t have access to a very basic hygiene need?”
The cost of period products adds up: Over a lifetime, a menstruating person will spend about $6,000 on period supplies, like tampons, pads, and menstrual cups. Two in five women have trouble affording these products. The educational costs add up, too. One in five American girls miss school because they lack access to them.
North Carolina law classifies period products as nonessential goods. Medical items that men don’t need are considered life’s little luxuries, apparently. For anyone who menstruates, it’s enough to make us bang our heads against the nearest wall. For anyone who hasn’t, try asking others how often they skip the “splurge” of tampons or pads just for funsies.
This designation has consequences. For one, the state taxes tampons and pads, unlike “real” medical necessities like toilet paper. North Carolina raises more than $8 million a year from taxes on these items. As “nonessential items,” period products aren’t eligible to purchase through WIC or SNAP. In addition, public school bathrooms aren’t stocked with period products. While the state does provide some school funding for menstrual products, it’s usually enough to last only a few months each year. Due to limited availability, they’re often stored at the front office or in the nurse’s office.
While advocates lobby lawmakers for changes (check out North Carolina’s Menstrual Equity for All Act), some create solutions. Glover began Posh Pack, which donated 25,000 pads to Charlotte-area schools last year, including Mallard Creek High, Eastway Middle, Garinger High, and Northridge Middle. “I’ve yet to meet a nurse in any Charlotte-Mecklenburg school,” she says, “who has told me that they don’t need them.”
In addition to raising donations, Glover raises awareness of period poverty as an issue of economics, education, and public health. When girls don’t have adequate access to period products, they might use products longer than intended—or items like rags, socks, or paper towels—that could cause infections or toxic shock syndrome, a rare but life-threatening complication of a bacterial infection. Or, like the three sisters, they might do without and miss several days of school each month.
“If schools can provide free and reduced lunch so that students are fed and taken care of holistically so that they can focus in class, they should also provide access to basic hygiene essentials,” Glover says.
Posh Pack donated 1344 pads to East Mecklenburg High in 2023. Courtesy, Posh Pack
Another nonprofit that fights period poverty is Period Project NC, run by two Cary high school seniors, Rose Rosaleen and Sarah Pazokian. These aspiring doctors raise money and awareness to install pad dispensers in girls’ bathrooms in schools throughout the state. They have a volunteer who keeps East Mecklenburg High School stocked, and they seek ambassadors and donations to help with additional schools.
“A lot of times when we talk to administrators, they’ll ask what happens if students misuse the dispensers and take too many products,” Pazokian says. “But I think that’s the whole reason we’re implementing products in schools. … If they don’t have products available to them or their sisters or their mom at home, they are free to take as many products as they need.” The girls start each school with a two-week trial to show administrators how it’ll work. Every school has been happy and kept the dispensers.
More than economically disadvantaged students find the bathroom dispensers helpful. It’s not rare to need a period product when one isn’t nearby, and Pazokian and Rosaleen don’t want students missing classes when that happens. (As a teenager, I would’ve chosen death over walking to the front office to ask for a tampon.) “There’s a common misconception that period products are a kind of luxury,” Rosaleen says. “The economic need is very important, but it’s also a very basic need that almost every girl has.”
As for the three sisters who took turns going to school? After a social worker alerted Glover to their need, Posh Pack provided enough period supplies to keep all three stocked all year long. “Let’s get them back in school,” Glover says, “like they should be.”