SHE SUPPLY

Working to Restore Dignity, One Feminine Hygiene Product at a Time

By Jade Emerson

Lisa Pierce-Johnson’s, founder and vice chair of She Supply, daughter was working in her mother’s psychiatry office. One day in the office bathroom a young woman asked her for a tampon. She had recently been displaced. She couldn’t pay for her college. She couldn’t pay for her appointment. She couldn’t even pay for gas to get home, let alone a box of tampons. Lisa’s daughter, who always had her own small bag of period products with her, gave the young woman what she had and later told her mom about the experience.

“It started a conversation with my daughter, who knew about period poverty,” Lisa says. “I think that one moment made me more curious, and I always go back to that whenever I tell people about my passion for this.”

She Suppy packaging event.

Photo Courtesy of She Supply

Lisa began to learn more about the lack of access to menstrual products and education. Soon after, she met with a group of women over lunch to talk about doing something more than a one-time drive to help period poverty locally. Five years and over 800,000 product donations later, She Supply is the fruition of that initial conversation, working as a nonprofit to support women in North Texas communities.

Lisa, who is now the vice chair of She Supply, says they partner with 15 different agencies in Denton, Collin, Tarrant and Dallas counties who work with women in need, providing them with pads, tampons, bras and underwear to distribute. Often, these products aren’t donated to food banks, creating a gap in access.

“When you’re looking at the whole person and you’re really trying to affect their physical health, their mental health, their financial health, it kind of all works in a continuous cycle. And eventually the goal by ending period poverty is that you lift people out of poverty, missing school and work, and out of some of the other barriers that also equate with period poverty,” She Supply program director Denise Angarola-Fernandez says.

Denise says she never experienced period poverty herself, but she heard stories from her mother about growing up in a household of seven girls in a very frail environment.

“Oftentimes there was not any disposable income. [They would be] sharing a bed, and then as they got older, trying to figure out how my mother and her sisters would really manage throughout the month. And it was often things like washcloths or a sock, whatever they could use that was reusable because they didn’t have the funds to buy products all the time,” she says.

For Denise, being able to give back to the community has been a gratifying process. After discovering the connection between free and reduced school lunches and period poverty, She Supply began to look at how they could help the one in five girls who miss school because of a lack of access to period products.

She Supply board meeting.

Photo Courtesy of She Supply

She Supply teen donation bag.

Photo Courtesy of She Supply

“And eventually the goal by ending period poverty is that you lift people out of poverty, missing school and work, and out of some of the other barriers that also equate with period poverty.”

-DENISE ANGAROLA-FERNANDEZ, SHE SUPPLY PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Working with the R.L. Turner High School, a Title I school where many students come from multigenerational homes, Denise says they sent each girl home with a summer’s amount of pads for her family when they left for summer break. She Supply also outfitted their locker room with pads and tampons, gave them underwear and made a volume purchase of sports bras for the girls.

‘That was the first time for most of the girls they’d ever worn something like that,” Denise says. “It’s pretty amazing when you know that you can have that impact.”

Similarly, when schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, girls who normally received period products from the school nurse no longer had access. Denise remembers the calls She Supply would get from families who were having to go months without period products. During a donation drive hosted by She Supply, the community rallied. Cars began lining up at 5 a.m., donating thousands of products that could then be given to the families in need.

“That was a really powerful moment for me and what we had built up to. How we were able to really just rise to that moment and support the community. And maybe go a bit deeper than we had in the past and serve new requests that previously we hadn’t,” Denise says.

Moving ahead, Lisa and Denise hope to reach their millionth product donation. With the next Texas legislative session beginning on Jan. 11, 2023, Lisa and the team at She Supply are also writing letters, and working with people and organizations in Austin to expand their activism efforts and end the luxury tax that Texas still has on period products. “It’s a more orchestrated, concerted effort, and it’s a priority for us and other organizations this year, probably more so than it’s ever been,” Lisa says.

She Supply at a community event.

Photo Courtesy of She Supply

The tax only amplifies the cost of necessary supplies for the 25% of women who are unable to purchase period products. “If you’re on a strict budget, especially if you’re in a multi-generational home, that’s $10 that could pay for gas to get you to a job. It can pay for a DART pass. It could pay for dinner,” Denise says.

Freedom from worrying about a lack of access to period products begins the process of change in a person’s life. For the young woman who asked for a tampon in Lisa’s office, having access to period products was just the first step in her new journey. Now, five years later, she is working on her Ph.D.

“Maybe the sweetest piece of this story is this girl really turned things around. She ended up going to the same college that my daughter went to. They still never have to this day figured out that they met each other in that bathroom,” Lisa says.

One in every four women struggles to purchase period products, but She Supply is working to rewrite the narrative. By working on ways to reduce the friction and barriers between young women and their feminine hygiene, they can be unapologetically female. “And give them that dignity and grace back,” Denise says.

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