Arkansas Period Poverty Project

Our second blog series: Dads and periods My parents are divorces, so on weekends I would go to my dads. There was no way I was going to tell my DAD that I started my period.  When he started finding my soiled underwear and clothes, he asked me. I just cried, I was so embarrassed. I was the oldest of four girls, so he didn't have a clue either. It's so funny now to think of my dad asking me about pads. He had me show him what pads I used, which he thought resembled diapers. I believe his exact words were," There's gotta be another way." He asked if they were comfortable, they were not. Maxi pads for a woman with heavy flow were not working for me. He took me to the store and we learned about period products together. He bought me a sweet treat and pain medicine for the cramps. He did this for me, then my sisters. This story is very special for me because I now know he did not have the money do that. We always took his jar of change to cash in at the CoinStar first.

Our first blog series: The stories of our first periods I started my period when I was 10 years old. My mom never talked to me about what a period was or why I bleed in the first place. I was only told what to do when I bleed. I used the same product that mom used, which were pretty thick maxi pads. I was taught that this was a discreet thing, that no one needed to know that I was on my period. So, if I started my period away from home, it was a nightmare. I was so afraid to tell the adult I was with, I didn't tell my sisters, I didn't know how to take my pad to the restroom with out someone noticing. I would spend weekends bleeding through toilet paper and underwear because I was so afraid to ask someone for help. I couldn't tell anyone about the cramps, then they would know I was on my period. It was a dirty secret and I had NEVER heard anyone talk about periods except my mom and that awful video we had to watch in 5th grade.  I remember a girl being in the bathroom at sc

Striving for menstrual equity in Arkansas through donations, education, and legislation. The Arkansas Period Poverty Project was founded in 2018 by Katie Clark after she read "Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement" by PERIOD founder, Nadya Okamoto. She began by reaching out to all of the public middle and high school principals in Little Rock and asked them if their students struggled with period poverty, a majority said yes.  She created a GoFundMe, had friends and family donate, purchased products, and donated them to schools in Little Rock. In 2019 we grew, adding on an Education Coordinator, Communications Coordinator, and Outreach Coordinators. In October 2019, we helped put on the first Arkansas Period Action Day rally with speakers, giveaways, and over 100 attendees. In 2020, just like everyone else, we had to pivot. We no longer held educational meetings in person, but started interviewing experts on topics like PCOS and endometriosis and posted those v