The Making Connections class for the social work program is collaborating with Finally Susan in collecting menstrual sanitation products for those in need, calling it “Period Power!”

The initiative helps spread awareness and donations for period poverty. 

Period poverty is the lack of access to menstrual products and hygiene facilities, as well as education on how to use said products. 

JayCee Burns, a sophomore social work major from Jonesboro, said the initiative wants to help as much as possible. 

“It’s really important because there’s people that can’t afford it and then there’s people in jail that just don’t get it,”  Burns said. “There’s people in school that miss school because they don’t have access to it.”

The Period Power initiative is looking for either monetary donations or physical donations like tampons, pads, menstrual cups, liners, feminine hygiene wipes, skin products, deodorants, body wash, bar soaps and underwear. 

Abby Bolton and Burns, the two students who proposed the project, presented the initiative at the FYE Academic Expo. They won second place in the philanthropy section for the project. 

Bolton, a first-year social work major from West Memphis, said the taboo of talking about periods among men was a driving force to talk more about it.

“It may not affect you personally, but it’s an issue that our community faces,” Bolton said. “I think as much as we can sort of educate people and encourage them to think of it as an issue that they can be involved in, or even if it doesn’t involve them, would be really great.”

Finally Susan, a leading collaborator for the initiative, is a local community resource that raises awareness and donations for menstrual products to help women and young people who may find difficulties with buying or having access to them.

Most of Burns and Bolton’s donations were earned through the expo, but outside donations can be dropped off in Dean B. Ellis Library Room 113B or dropped in the donation boxes around campus or through monetary donations like CashApp.

Period poverty in the United States and college campuses has been steadily growing with over 16.9 million people in the U.S. experiencing period poverty and 14.2% of college students experiencing it just within the last year.

Johnathan Schaufler, a junior nursing major from Salem, Arkansas, introduced the first initiative to lessen period poverty to the A-State campus, having accomplished two prior initiatives before “Period Power!”

The Arkansas State University Student Nurses Association (SNA) collaborated with Arkansas Women’s Outreach (AWO) in February 2022, at their state nursing convention located in Hot Springs, intending to end period poverty in Arkansas with the Period Packaging Party.

“We do a lot of other donation drives, like food and clothes, and not that those aren’t necessarily great, but it’s (the donation drive for menstrual products) just something that I personally had never thought of or crossed my mind until I did that,” Schaufler said. “It just became something that I had just become really passionate about because it’s not talked about enough.” 

SNA’s partnership with AWO hosted a period packing party, where the Honors College and A-State fraternities/sororities (like Phi Delta Theta, Zeta Tau Alpha, Alpha Gamma Delta and more) joined to bring donations of menstrual products. 

They packaged bags of eight tampons, eight pads and eight panty liners, distributing them to the A-State Food Pantry, the NYIT Medical Clinic on campus, the Craighead County Health Department, Bono Church of Christ food pantry and other locations within the Jonesboro/Northeast Arkansas area. 

They packaged almost 300 full bags, with over 200 bags that were halfway full or partially filled.

For the Mr. Rhomeo Pageant, hosted by the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Schaufler presented the period poverty drive as his community service initiative.

“I took monetary donations or physical donations and I was able to package the same bags and package 82 of them,” Schaufler said.  

The Period Power initiative earned $267 in donations, with 75 individual physical products donated as of Dec. 4.

Period Power donations end Dec. 6, but they won’t complete their last rounds of donations for Finally Susan until Dec. 13. 

If students miss the deadline, they can donate to Finally Susan through the CashApp, $melanieleac.

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