Our FIFTH anniversary 2023!
And we’re aiming high for this year’s pad drive: $10K in 10 weeks!!
We’ve been really successful in getting the word out and helping our neighbors every year get the hygiene products they need and deserve—and we’re nowhere near stopping.
OK, but like how much are we talking, here?
- Our first year (2018): We raised $2,625 and donated 141 pounds of tampons, pads, and cups (Trust us, that’s a lot. A truckload!)
- Our second year (2019): About $900 in a one-night fundraiser, plus another truckload of product
- Our third year (2020): $5,250, plus donated product (which didn’t get weighed or measured due to COVID and variety of delivery methods)
- Our fourth year (2021): We just narrowly beat the record set the year before, with around $5,400 plus truckloads of product.
- Last year: Tampons and pads were affected by the supply chain; many stores did not have inventory and had limits placed on purchases, therefore
- It’s our FIFTH ANNIVERSARY in 2023 and we wanna go big!
Take My Money!
Want to just drop us some cash and not worry about the rest? We take a cue from mutual aid movements and skip the GoFundMe format so the people who need it mostest get the very mostest. Every penny has always gone toward products. This is an all-volunteer operation.
Here’s how you send us money:
-
Katie Dohman:
- Venmo: @katie-dohman
- Paypal: katalogued@gmail.com
-
Abby Hendricks:
- Venmo: @Abby-Hendricks-14
- Paypal: abbyhendricks@gmail.com
Take My Tampons, Pads, and Cups!
If you prefer to drop products to our period advocates, you can do that too! We’ll be hosting “fill the trunk” events for fundraising and fun, adding drop boxes around town, and you can get in touch with us and make a drop at our homes. Watch this space and our social media for event updates.
Or, if you're more of a click-and-ship type, you can also purchase items from WoW's Amazon list and we'll take care of the rest!
Sustainability: WoW Creates Community Change
We don’t just run fundraisers or drives, though: WoW is committed to increasing access to the democratic process and creating sustainable, equitable change in our community. We’re not afraid to say we’ve had a huge impact:
- We’ve helped increase representation on our city council, committees, and commissions
- Advocated and achieved adding language translations to important community documents
- Protected our most vulnerable community members through protest, advocacy, and policy change, among many other things
- Celebrated the diversity of our community
A win we’re particularly proud of: After receiving word our school district needed help with period products in the nurse’s offices and bathrooms, we dove in to donate! We filled so many closets and drawers they were ready to turn the rest away to another waiting organization. But even better, through this persistent advocacy and donation, we were able to open a line of communication with the school district, and advocate for and achieve a line item in the budget for period products for the schools! We can cross them off the list of donations and find another partner in need. Movements like these are happening nationwide, both in communities and legislatures, to increase period security and make sure every human with a period lives with dignity.
Why do you do this?
WoW History: We Haven't Forgotten
Ever since first female mayor of West St. Paul Jenny Thompson Halverson said, “This won’t be forgotten, folks,” after blowing the whistle on a whole lot of bad, misogynistic behavior during her time on city council and as mayor, WoW has made it a goal to increase civic engagement, make room for women, non-binary, and other underrepresented folks at the decision making table, and make West St. Paul a more progressive place to work, live, and play.
May 18, 2018 marked a historic meeting: Hundreds of West St. Paul citizens came to support the mayor, denounce both situational and systemic sexism and other city-wide issues, and rally for change in our city. Each year we hold our hygiene drive to both honor the glass-ceiling smashers and to gladly take on our own share of civic responsibility for the causes that matter to our community.
We raise money and collect products such as tampons, pads, and cups to help our menstruating neighbors get the supplies they need. We’ve changed the way we raise money and collect products each year based on need and safety protocols.
WoW in the World
If you want to read more about how this fundraiser came to be, check out this Teen Vogue story.
We got a sweet update from the Star Tribune in 2021, too.
How else can I help?
Glad you asked!
You can:
- Post on social media (word of mouth is our biggest donation driver!)
- Share our Venmo
- Keep your Venmo donation public when you donate (you’d be SURPRISED how many friends will donate when they see your good work!)
- Contact us to volunteer, donate money or product, etc.
- Talk to your bosses about corporate match donations or if you know anyone in the industry—we’d love to have Tampax, etc. become a corporate partner
- Start a drive in your town! Period poverty is, unfortunately, everywhere
Did You Know?
- Hygiene products such as pads, tampons, cups, and such are among the highest-demand products at food banks and other organizations who work with communities to help meet their daily needs.
- Volunteers at Neighbors, Inc. told WoW they often have to open the boxes and break them apart to try to give clients a few tampons or pads each to stretch the donations. When we donated to mutual aid groups in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, we were told period products flew off the tables and people were very excited that it was even an option.
- Nearly 17 million people live in period poverty in the U.S.: They do not have the access or income to get the supplies they need every 28 days.
- Nearly 14 percent of college-age people who menstruate have not been able to afford hygiene products in the last year, and 10 percent cannot each month.
- Two-thirds of low-income women cannot afford products each month.
- You cannot use SNAP benefits to purchase hygiene products.
- Those who reported period insecurity in the last year were also the people most likely to report moderate to severe depression. The stigma connected to periods is isolating and full of shame. Since COVID-19 hit, 1 in 3 parents has worried about being able to afford hygiene products for their menstruating child.
- One in five menstruating school-age people have missed school as a result. Lower-income and students of color are more impacted than their white counterparts.
- The State of the Period survey in 2019 found that 51 percent of students ages 13 to 19 feel their school does not care about them if they do not provide free products in their bathroom.
- Hygiene products are also subject to sales tax, which many groups nationwide are looking to abolish.
Contact Us
Need another way to donate or drop off products? Have questions or connections or want to help?
- Get in touch! Email hellowomenofwsp@gmail.com
- Find Us on Facebook