TOPEKA, Kan. – Sister Good’s organization says they found that 1 in 5 teenage girls miss school because they lack feminine products.
“These are feminine products for woman and girls and the fact that they did not have supplies for that time of the month and they are not able to use any type of government assistance and moms are making decisions of whether to purchase a meal or feminine items,” said April Kelsey.
Kelsey knows first hand the shortage of products at public schools
‘I chose to do this because I used to be a teacher at Pauline South and I was a 6th-grade teacher and I was in the classroom and that was something we definitely saw going on and noticing kids were missing school.” she said.
Pauline South’s nurse had to start paying out of her own pocket to keep up with the need.
“We definitely go through quite a bit of supply, I do get some supplies from the school but sometimes some of the supplies I do get, don’t fit all girls and so I bought other supplies that give girls more protection,” said Summer McCoy.
Kelsey says the loads of donations she received have been amazing.
“It has been amazing the Topeka community has just swept this up and just took over and did a ton for this, but we have had just locals bringing them by and Amazon packages,” Kelsey said.
Washburn Rural High School also has observed the supplies aren’t meeting the demand–
“Things we were really short on were feminine hygiene products and it just wasn’t something that was being heavily donated and that was just something we were really short on and this will really help with an area that we really need,” said Assistant Principal, Tyler Ayers.
