The Assertive Kids’ ‘Raising Awareness of Menstruation Struggles’ Program seeks to help financially challenged women in Staten Island by providing menstrual products completely free of charge.
Reusable feminine hygiene products like period panties and shorts, menstrual cups, and cloth pads and panty liners, can help save costs, and reduce waste.
Goat Union, a U.S.-based woman-owned small business, has also donated 180 pairs of period panties, a reusable menstrual product that also helps to prevent waste, an eco-friendly choice.
Mountainside Partners has also donated over 200 pairs of period panties, menstrual cups, pads and liners to our program.
For those preferring to use traditional menstrual products, we can still help. We’re giving women a choice!
Of course, we always support encouraging women to find more sustainable ways of dealing with feminine protection. However, not everyone is ready to make that change, or likes the products out there.
Providing equity to individuals and families at the most vulnerable levels of our shared society is our key goal; while many companies make epic profits these days, many Americans struggle.
We also want to help spread awareness by providing fellow citizens with the facts. A lot of people don’t know that many families are struggling to afford the basics. In some cases, this includes fully employed women with children.
Every menstruating person must find effective solutions to deal with both everyday discharge and menstrual fluid. It’s a part of life that cannot be ignored, crossing all demographic and political lines.
However, it takes funds to supply oneself, and one’s kids, with feminine hygiene products. Failure to address this vital need can lead to stained, ruined clothing and the expected ensuing embarrassment, when this happens around others.
And so, it’s fair to say that menstrual products are a necessity. Not having the proper menstrual products often leads to missed days at school for girls.
In other parts of the world, economically disadvantaged girls and women resort to using what’s available. This can even include leaves fallen from trees or rags.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance programs (SNAP) and SNAP for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) do not cover the cost of feminine hygiene products. True fact. (Only nutritive products are covered.)
As of 2020, the CARES Act reclassifies disposable menstrual hygiene products as “medical care,” and are thus now Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) eligible. And, as of 2022, “period panties” are also eligible.
This means that a person can use their FSA/HSA Debit Card to pay for these products. And, sales tax is now waived in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, along with nearly a third of others states choosing to either eliminate sales tax on this item or having no sales tax at all.
According to the Most Policy Initiative, “..poverty disproportionately affect[s] women and ethnic minorities…”
From that same report, we learn that a study conducted in St. Louis determined that fully half of women surveyed could not afford both feminine hygiene products and food. Many of these women use cloth, rags, tissues, toilet paper, or even infant diapers as substitutes.
It’s not just a third world problem. We can imagine that in a city like New York and the surrounding NY/NJ Metro area, with costs of living higher than that of Missouri, the problem would be just as widespread, if not more so.
