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player ready...For two years now, Evergreen Park Public Library and Candor Health Education have involved young library patrons as well as students from Central Middle School in Evergreen Park and their parents, in what has become an annual Menstrual Supply Drive to address period poverty.
Period poverty may impact up to two-thirds of girls and women in low income families, according to a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2017-2018 and referenced on the National Institutes of Health website.
Findings suggest on a larger scale, across the nation, many women, girls and their families must choose between paying for food or menstrual hygiene products. Those products can cost more than $300 per person per year and they are not covered by SNAP benefits. Another survey indicated inadequate access to menstrual products caused some girls to miss school.
Illinois is one of only 10 states and the District of Columbia where menstrual hygiene products are provided free of charge in schools.
That’s why the goal of the Menstrual Supply Drive is to help 1,000 girls who attend Illinois schools serving low income populations make it through the summer months, said Barb Thayer, executive director of Candor Health Education, a Chicago area nonprofit that will distribute items collected by the drive.
“Last year we collected enough supplies for 450 girls,” Thayer said. “We’re aiming to more than double quantities from last year.”
Debbie Gibbons, a Central Middle School social studies teacher, said she was happy to recruit students for this year’s effort.
“I’m a ‘girl power’ girl, and I wanted to instill in our girls and boys that it’s important to support women,” she said. “We do a lot of social service projects, and I also wanted my students to realize that it’s important to help your immediate community.”
Five eighth graders — all girls — volunteered to decorate large collection boxes. “I opened it up to everyone, but the boys seemed a little embarrassed. After all, they’re only in middle school,” Gibbons said.
She seemed confident, however, that some boys might support the collection effort by donating supplies or convincing their families to chip in.
“It’s a great thing for girls and teens to get involved in helping others who struggle with this problem,” said Mary Black, an EPPL teen librarian. “These products will be going to schools where there is great need.”
The drive kicked off April 21 and runs through the third week of May. The ask is for feminine pads, tampons, hygienic wipes and Ipsy Bags. Items can be dropped at Evergreen Park Public Library, 9400 S. Troy Ave.; Evergreen Park Youth Department, 3450 W. 97th St., and Central Middle School, 9400 S. Sawyer Ave.
To boost interest, the library will conclude the collection with a mother-daughter tea and book signing at 11 a.m. May 20, with Rebecca Garner, author of a young adult fiction book, “Why Won’t my Boobs Grow and Other Annoyances.”
Those who attend are encouraged to donate menstrual products and assemble feminine emergency bags to be stocked at the library, youth center and school, Black said.
Coincidentally, Garner, who grew up in Oak Lawn, taught language arts at Central Middle School from 2011 to 2017.
“I have a soft spot for middle school age kids,” she said. “I just remember so much from that time and all the wishing I could grow up faster. I also know what sorts of things interest kids this age.”
Garner’s book, released in 2022 by New Degree Press, offers diary-style accounts of 14-year-old Emma navigating school lessons amid social cliques, pizza parties, sleepovers, skating parties, flirting with boys, and learning to exercise responsible judgment.
But the most important lessons are about friendship and family. These revolve around Emma’s first crush, first kiss, and her first period — a critical rite of passage.
“It’s such a formative experience,” Garner said. “Your reaction to it depends so much on the people around you. Emma receives a warm reaction from her friends and family, but I can’t imagine how challenging it would be if people were negative because you don’t have the resources to take care of your body.”
Which is why when it came to using her book to help bring awareness to period poverty and the Menstrual Supply Drive, Garner said, “I was all in.”
Garner attended Our Lady of the Ridge Catholic Elementary School in Chicago Ridge. Her book portrays a field trip to “the Center for Health Education,” which Garner based on her own school field trip experience to Robert Crown Center for Health Education. The center later became known as Candor Center for Health Education.
The center closed in 2017, but Candor still provides school presentations for students grades four through 12 covering puberty and sex, substance abuse and prevention, and social and emotional wellness, Thayer said.
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Candor also continues to work with Central Middle School and two other schools in Evergreen Park — Southeast Elementary and Northwest Elementary.
Following the collection, supplies will be dropped off at Candor Health Education, 15 Spinning Wheel Drive, Hinsdale. More information about period poverty and the Candor Center for Health Education drive is at https://candorhealthed.org/events/menstrual-supply-drive/.
Susan DeGrane is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.