PETERSBURG, Va. (WWBT) – Petersburg City Public Schools is partnering with Dignity Grows, a nationwide nonprofit, to address period poverty among high school students.
The “Hope in a Backpack” initiative aims to help girls miss fewer days of school.
“Period poverty, while often overlooked, is a growing public health crisis affecting over a third of American women and girls,” said Jennifer Tolman, president and COO of Dignity Grows. “And it limits or hinders access to monthly menstrual hygiene products.”
The nonprofit is working with Bon Secours, Communities in Schools, Petersburg City Public Schools and other community partners to provide sanitary bags to all girls in grades 7-12.
“That’s a thousand bags,” Tolman added.
Kortez Dixon, site coordinator for Communities in Schools, initially helped distribute the bags to graduating students at Petersburg High School.
“They were very excited. You could hear the gasps all over the room, like, ‘Oh my God, seriously? Like, ‘Oh my God, thank you!’ They were very accommodating,” Dixon said. “It put a smile on my face to see how grateful they were.”
“We know that students who do not have access to hygiene products – especially menstrual hygiene products – have limited ability to attend school regularly and fully engage in learning,” Tolman said. “We knew from the Petersburg community that this need is widespread in schools here.”
The bags offer space for about a month’s supply of six different hygiene products.
“Soap, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste, towels and deodorant, and two full boxes of period products,” Tolman said. “That’s a full month’s supply of all the basic hygiene items.”
Bon Secours provided the contents of the pilot program bags.
“We know that a girl who is experiencing period poverty and who regularly lacks access to period products will miss an average of 145 days of school by the end of Grade 12,” Tolman said. “That’s a really big gap in education and it significantly increases the gender gap in our schools.”
Dignity Grows said that by providing students with essential supplies in 64 areas across the country, chronic absenteeism among female students has fallen by 23%.
“We are removing all the barriers that hinder our students’ success,” said Jamaal Ellison, Communities in Schools program director for Petersburg.
Dignity Grows and its partners in Petersburg want to make this a regular offering for students, but said they need the community’s financial support to do so.
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