As we enter the first month of the new year, I wanted to provide an update on program operations. In our second year, our subscriptions have increased greatly and we are providing our clients with more options to meet their needs. We continue to add new partners and even hosted our first PEP (Period Education Project) Rally with girls at the Jubilee Family Development Center. We are grateful for the part that each of them play in making our PAD Center successful. Together, we are making an impact to decrease period poverty and increase education around menstrual health.
Accomplishments
At this time, the PAD Center serves 99 women through our monthly subscription program. These women are mainly from Lynchburg, but we are also reaching women in Amherst County, Bedford County, Campbell County, and Pamplin, Virginia. We continue to increase our client numbers with the help of our eight referring partners distributing Immediate Response Kits (IRKs) and the community spreading the word about the PAD Center. We have also begun passing out IRKs at community events and health fairs to increase our reach. In 2023, we will begin partnering with Johnson Health Center’s Mobile Unit to provide menstrual products to women at various locations.
A noteworthy partner that has joined forces with the PAD Center recently is Lynchburg City Schools. We are working to provide each school with IRKs so that no student in Lynchburg will have to worry about access to period products. Through this partnership, we hope to sign students and members of their families up for monthly kits.
Community partners in our area have hosted 11 drives to date. This provided the PAD Center with the products to provide our clients with more than 400 monthly kits!
Opportunities
The PAD Center always welcomes donations, and we encourage those who are interested to contact the administrator for promotional materials and to get a list of most needed products. We welcome any and everything, but there are certain items that are a little harder for us to order, and we appreciate the added support provided through product donation drives. As our number of clients continue to grow, additional products donated will allow the PAD Center to guarantee more women monthly subscriptions throughout the year. With our current client load, we are nearly at 85% capacity of clients we can support monthly. Donations will allow us to increase that number and help more women.
With increasing numbers of clients having transportation challenges, the PAD Center is working to find ways to provide products to these women. Most referring partners allow for subscription pickup from their offices, but that is challenging for clients who may only visit there once each quarter. We do work to ensure that subscriptions will coincide with those visits when possible.
Before the PAD Center, period poverty was a grossly underserved issue in our community, where the average monthly household income is approximately $49,201. With each month of operation, the program gains more notoriety and brings some peace of mind to new women. These women express their gratitude that a resource like this is available and also are complimentary of the care that goes into trying to accommodate their personal needs and circumstances.
As the chairwoman of the committee who brings you this program, I cannot thank our partner organizations enough for the perseverance and dedication they contribute to this program. The constant reminder that there is support and collaboration makes a world of difference when taking on an issue as large as period poverty. We would have never made the impact we have in our first year and a half if we were not working in tandem with many other supporting groups in the Central Virginia community.
In Partnership,
Melissa Busse
PAD Center Committee Chair
PAD Center 