Period poverty has been an issue throughout the world for decades, but in recent years, New Jersey has made several efforts to reduce its impact.
Period poverty occurs when menstruating females are unable to afford adequate sanitary products or don’t have access to hygiene facilities and education. The situation can lead to health issues like urinary tract infections and depression. An estimated 25% of women have trouble accessing or affording products.
To combat the problem, the Cherry Hill library partnered with the Alice Paul Institute’s Girls Leadership Council in 2023 to create a period pantry for teen patrons. Jasmine Riel is a teen librarian who helped set that up.
“I think it took a while for people to really understand that it was a permanent fixture in the library,” she recalled. “It wasn’t just like a drive and a project that the students who helped organize it did for a short period of time.”
For most of its existence, the pantry has been located on shelves in the library’s upper-floor teen section, where it provides various sizes and types of tampons, pads and panty liners. Due to construction, it has been temporarily relocated to a table in the same section.
Riel says the pantry is clearly necessary; she can see products being taken week to week, especially maxi and regular pads, regular tampons and menstrual cups from Alice Paul, the only reusable option in the pantry.
“We would like to offer more reusable products, like period panties and things like that,” Riel noted. “It’s something that we’ve definitely talked about.”
Donations from Alice Paul continue to be the main source of pantry materials, though individual donations are also accepted. Since it began, the pantry has proved to be valuable even to those who aren’t in need of its products.
“We’ve also had parents tell us that it’s been a great visible educational tool for them to share with their own children,” Riel explained, “especially if they have children who don’t (yet) menstruate. They can say, like, ‘Hey, you have friends who have periods. Can you imagine how much money they have to spend on these all the time?’”
Riel believes the pantry is a tool not just for information, but for teaching empathy that can in turn help break existing stigmas around menstruation.
“We don’t just say feminine products anymore, we say period products,” she emphasized, “because that’s what it is. It’s a biological experience that people have.”
In addition to local programs, there have been efforts statewide in the last two years to combat period poverty. In the summer of 2023, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that requires school districts to provide free menstrual products to students in grades six through 12. And last year, New Jersey became the first state to allow use of welfare and cash assistance programs to buy period products.
Since much of the pantry’s stock comes from Alice Paul, a nonprofit, there is concern that recent upheaval in federal government grant allocations may make it more difficult to routinely stock its products.
“They (Alice Paul) are a nonprofit, so with things kind of going on in the world right now, it’s hard to tell how frequently they’ll be able to buy and supply certain things,” Riel acknowledged.
Though donations were initially discouraged when the pantry first opened due to limited space, Riel now encourages them, as well as donations to Alice Paul.
“It’s important to donate something like menstrual products,” she observed. “That kind of want to help people is really special, and it’s very unique. It’s a very unique way of giving back to your community.”
