Anchorage high schoolers lead effort to expand access to period products in district schools

A pair of South Anchorage High School students are leading an effort to fund and install period product dispensers and free pads in eight middle and elementary school bathrooms throughout the district.

Currently, Anchorage elementary, middle and high school nurses keep a supply of period products in their offices to distribute to students for free, according to Kathy Bell, the director of health care services for the district and a former middle school nurse. Some school nurses said they also keep supplies in gym locker rooms, at the front office or with teachers.

But the initiative, dubbed The Period Project, aims to make period products more accessible to increasingly younger menstruating girls by bringing them to where they are needed most: school bathrooms.

The group recently began fundraising during school lunches to meet their goal of $500 to install their first pad dispenser at Northern Lights ABC, a K-8 school selected for its wide grade range. Eventually, the group plans to raise the additional cash to fund pad dispensers and supplies at another seven middle and elementary schools where nurses and principals expressed interest, said Leila Henderson, The Period Project’s co-organizer and a South High School junior.

“Imagine if you had to go to the nurse every time you needed toilet paper,” said Henderson. “The thing is: When you need a pad, you’re not in the nurse’s office, you’re in the bathroom. Pads in the bathroom,” she said, waving her hands like a magician. “It’s so obvious, that it’s crazy that it’s not (happening).”

The Period Project was born in a civics leadership class at South High, where students lead volunteer projects designed to make a positive impact on their community. Henderson teamed up with her best friend and fellow South High junior, Kara Wolfe, to focus on a community problem they had experienced: the lack of period products accessible for Anchorage middle and elementary school students.

Nationally, on average, girls get their first period at 12 years old, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But increasingly, girls are getting their periods at younger ages — in fourth and fifth grade — due to environmental factors, like hormones found in meats, according to Bell. “So, elementary schools are dealing with this now, too,” Bell said.

Although all school nurses in the district are given a fixed budget based on the size of their student body to order supplies for the year — everything from Band-Aids to ibuprofen, as well as tampons and pads — Bell said it’s up to the discretion of each nurse on what they do or don’t order.

And even then, the products are mostly kept in nurses' offices or with teachers, and students have to ask for them, club members said.

A South High English teacher, Lindsay Watson, this year successfully petitioned her school to purchase menstrual projects and stock them for students to freely take in her hallway’s bathroom, she said. If kids are worried about where to get menstrual products from, Watson said, it takes away from their ability to succeed in the classroom.

In the U.S., 1 in 4 students suffer from “period poverty,” meaning they struggle to afford menstrual hygiene products, according to a 2023 study. That’s why the group is specifically looking to prioritize installation at Anchorage’s Title 1 schools, where lower-income students may not otherwise have easy access to menstruation products, according to Henderson.

Schools on the list to receive a pad dispenser in the coming few years are: Muldoon Elementary and Central Middle School — both Title 1 — followed by Eagle Academy Charter School, Anchorage Stream Academy, Goldenview Middle School, Hanshew Middle School and Gruening Middle School, Henderson said. The idea is to supply each school with one dispenser and supplies initially, and expand based on demand.

Muldoon Elementary school nurse Bethany Zimpelman said it’s not uncommon to have girls as young as eight who have their periods, and that many of her students don’t have the resources to buy their own menstrual products and rely on those provided by the school.

“There is period poverty in our area,” Zimpelman said. “Girls will stock up over the weekends, or over the summer, and we are fine with that if they have the need for it.”

The Period Project will alleviate some of her school’s stressed resources, she said.

“We are excited not only to have a better dispenser and location — right now it’s just a little box, kind of perched on top of the paper towel dispenser — but also … supplies” to fill the dispenser.

Lack of free menstrual products in school bathrooms can also represent a significant amount of missed instructional time, Watson said.

“If they have to go to the nurse, it’s just an excessive amount of time missed in class,” Watson said. “It’s more convenient for the girls to have what they need in the restroom, and not have to miss 10 minutes of class time trying to get what they need from the nurse.”

Henderson and Wolfe hope that their project also de-stigmatizes conversations around periods for younger students.

Wolfe said she wasn’t always so comfortable talking about menstruation. She got her period at 9 years old, she said, while she was at school in Alabama.

She didn’t feel any shame or embarrassment at first, she said. Her mother is a nurse, and had prepared her for what to expect. But when a teacher overheard Wolfe explaining the blood on her pants to a male student who asked, she said they called for a girl-only assembly the following day to let students know that boys didn’t want to hear about their periods.

“After that, I didn’t talk about it. It was such a secret for me,” Wolfe said. “I didn’t want girls up here to have to deal with that.”

The ASD Period Project club meets weekly, and a fluctuating group of about seven students works toward their goals, Henderson said.

They have one regular male member who attends meetings, Ming Song, a junior who has participated in the group all year. Song heard about the group from a hallway flyer, and thought he should join to get informed, he said.

“I’ve noticed that a lot of boys tend to shy away from female problems,” Song said, standing beside the other group members at the group’s lunchtime fundraiser. “I want to make the point that ... you don’t have to be a girl to be fighting for women’s rights.”

On Monday, the group raised just over $200 from student and teacher donations. By the end of the week, the teacher who has the most amount of money donated in their name on students’ behalf will have to use a period cramp simulator, Henderson said. It’s aimed at the same goal of eliminating some of the taboo surrounding periods, cramps, and everything that goes with them.

“Periods are obviously very stigmatized, they always have been,” Henderson said. “I feel like the more action we take surrounding it, the more children will realize it’s acceptable and it’s a normal bodily function, and everyone can suck it up if they have a problem with that.”