BATTLING
PERIOD poverty 16-YEAR-OLD LILY WILSON MAKES IT HER MISSION written by JULIE KOERBER photography by LOVELY HITCHCOCK
SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Lily Wilson knows that on any given day, at least one of her female classmates will walk the halls of Senior High School and will face the shame of having her period without having feminine products on hand. “I am lucky enough. I’ve never had to deal with that,” Lily says. But in doing research for a high school project, all signs pointed to a serious need. The issue has been dubbed “period poverty,” and the statistics show one in five American girls miss all or part of a school day because of their periods. The research also shows most low-income students equate menstruation with shame. “If these products were easily in the bathrooms, they could continue their education and not have to miss days or make up work,” Lily says. “It just seems like an obvious need.” She’s tackling the need head-on with a Go Fund Me page designed to get product dispensers in every girl’s bathroom in the high school. “I compared a map of the Senior High School district and poverty rates in billings. The Senior High School district definitely overlapped more with the impoverished areas of town,” Lily says, 42
YVW MAGAZINE
adding, “There are a lot of homeless girls at Senior.” Right now, neither the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the federal food stamp program, nor the Women, Infants & Children program allows women to use subsidized funding to purchase feminine hygiene products. “It’s horrible. Imagine having to choose between your food and your hygiene products for the month,” Lily says. “It’s a financial burden yet you need them every month. There’s no way around it.” “It’s something our school definitely needs,” says Senior High Principal Jeff Uhren. “We’re an old school. We don’t always have the funds to update things like this.” Right now, feminine products are available at both the attendance and counselor’s offices, but Lily says if you have a class on the third floor, it’s a hike to access the free products. A girl might have to miss a good chunk of her class time just to walk down three flights of stairs, wait for assistance, head to the bathroom and then back up to class.
