The Arkansas State University’s Student Nurses Association (SNA) partnered with Arkansas Women’s Outreach on Thursday for a period packing party to benefit low income and homeless menstruating people in the area. 

Period poverty is a lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, waste management and education. In Arkansas, two in nine women and girls between the age of 12 and 44 live below the federal poverty line.

The packing party was organized by Jonathan Schaufler, a sophomore nursing major from Salem, Arkansas.  

This past October at the SNA state convention, the students attended a similar packing party for the Arkansas Women’s Outreach in Central Arkansas, realizing there was also a need for that kind of service here.  

“Imagine if you’re homeless and you have two partners and they have two or three children,” Schaufler said. “Are you going to choose to buy feminine products or are you going to choose to feed your family? That was how they laid it out.” 

Schaufler added that the event helped open the SNA’s eyes to period poverty. 

“We got to talking with some of the people from the Arkansas Women’s Outreach and they were telling us that they have no one in Northeast Arkansas that does anything like this,” Schaufler said. “So that automatically got the ball rolling. We want to help the people in our area, especially if no one else is doing it.”

People suffering from period poverty may use period products for far longer than necessary. 

Schaufler said tampons are only supposed to be worn for up to four to six hours. If worn longer, they can cause toxic shock, infections and even infertility. 

Katie Henley, a junior nursing major from Star City, Arkansas, said period products are expensive and not easy to come by for menstruating people who have no resources at home. 

Each individualized bag provided by Arkansas Women’s Outreach contains eight tampons, eight pads and eight panty liners to be donated to local homeless shelters, churches and schools.  

“One of the elementary schools in town, we always ask the school nurse ‘what’s something that your students need?’ And that’s feminine products, something that she always identifies. They even need (them) at elementary schools,” said Addie Fleming, a nursing professor and a coordinator of SNA.

With the help from other on campus organizations Phi Delta Theta, Zeta Tau Alpha, the Honors College, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi and Chi Omega, the party ended with 346 completed bags for donation.   

There are still 200 bags for donation that are not completed and an ongoing need in the area even though the packing party is over.  

The Student Nurses Association always accepts donations. A student can make monetary donations via CashApp or Venmo @astatesna or can be dropped off to the front office of A-State’s Nursing and Health Professions Building.

Categories: News