SAPP's Fourth Blog Post!
Welcome to SAPP’s fourth blog post!
There are some thing which we can control, and some things which we cannot. When you were in your mother’s womb, were you the one able to decide your gender? Most likely not. Similarly, menstruators do not get to choose how they deal with their periods when they first experience menarche. If menstruators had the choice, no one would choose to experience period poverty. Because of this, we need to ensure that those experiencing period poverty should have a little less stress on themselves.
Anyone can experience period poverty, regardless of being born in a third world or a first world country. Since period poverty includes both sanitation, education, and period products, there is no surprise that anyone could have trouble with their monthly cycles at some point in life. Someone who has a water system, but be receives dirty water contributes to the problem. As stated before, negative consequences include bacterial infections, stigma and taboo, and additional health issues.
In our own community, there are menstruators who are struggling and we might not know. Aside from all the negatives arising from this, we have some great news. SAPP has participated in the Amazing Grant and we have received $1000! With this money, our team can now buy supplies in bulk supporting approximately 200 homeless and disadvantaged menstruators.
Our Cupertino site has launched Project: Red Box. This is a program that provides volunteer opportunities for students during the ongoing pandemic in the most accessible and safest way possible. Period products are distributed in signature Red Boxes. The three roles of successfully donating a Red Box include the card designer, package decorator, and product donor. Menstruators in need will be grateful for the donations as well as the love put into the packages. Our Milpitas location has also made great progress in alleviating this issue in the community. They have donated over 1,000 care packages to LifeMoves and SAVE.
Without the help of community donations, SAPP would not exist. You can help us by making physical donations of menstrual goods (tissues, baby wipes, masks, chapsticks, etc), making a tax-deductible monetary donation to our PayPal (paypal.me/sapp4u) or venmo (venmo.com/sapp4u), or by writing us a check (contact us for mailing address!). We appreciate any amount you can give us. If you are crafty and would like some hands-on experience, you can join our CAPP-IT program and attend our workshops. If you cannot perform any of the aforementioned actions, you can contribute by spreading awareness about SAPP on social media. (IG: @officialsapp FB: @sapp4u)
About the author
Hello! My name is Christina Yang and I am a senior at Irvington High School. Once I did some research for my QUEST project on period poverty, I was astonished at how the issue is not being talked about more. By being a part of SAPP, I hope to spread the word about period poverty and help lessen the issue.
