Period. fights against local period poverty

by Kalli Desai

A local youth group in Fort Mill has come together to fight period poverty and the stigma around menstrual periods. Founder and Operator Lily Sanders (‘26) was inspired to make a change after reading “Period Power” by Nadya Okamoto.

She learned how real and serious the issue of lack of access to menstrual products, known as period poverty, is today. “This is an issue affecting people close to me that I just couldn’t ignore,” Sanders said, “Everybody deserves to feel clean and dignified, regardless of their financial situation.”

In their first year the group collected donations and raised over 10,000 period products and have been actively giving back to the community. They have started to donate to homeless and women’s shelters in Fort Mill, Rock Hill, and Charlotte.

They have recently expanded into the Nation Ford High School Commons bathroom to do a trial run to see the reaction of the students and to see how much inventory they will need. In the fall Period. ran a drive to collect period pouches for elementary, middle and high school students in the Fort Mill School District.

To help keep the cause of Period. going the stu dent body can help by donating through Venmo with codes they can scan which are posted around the school, and donations will be accepted outside of Beth Sidwell’s room B120.