Joining Forces to Combat Menstrual Inequity with The Period Place

“This is a bloody brilliant partnership that lets NZFN focus on getting people the everyday things they need like food and period products and lets us focus on getting more partners to increase donations”– Danika Revell.

The Situation

Co-founded in 2019 by CEO Danika Revell, The Period Place (TPP) is Aotearoa’s largest menstrual equity charity. The team champion increased menstrual literacy and provide accessible menstrual health resources to communities nationwide. TPP advocates for change with the vision of ‘intergenerational menstrual equity for Aotearoa’ and aims to create safe spaces for stigma-free conversations, advocating for accessible period products for all.

Through established partnerships with period product businesses, they receive donations of bulk product that is then delivered into the community via their network of Impact Partners.

Staff from Visionwest, Fair Food, Salvation Army, South Auckland Christian Food Bank and The Period Place holding menstural products

The Challenge

The Period Place operates with a small core team, who found they were spending too much time working out the storage and logistics of getting large donations from A to B, pulling their attention away from their educational and advocacy projects.

Our Solution

We simplified the process for TPP by doing what we do best - taking the logistics and warehousing off their hands and distributing the donated product to communities right across the country. This meant the team at TPP had more time for doing what they do best - advocating for menstrual equity and building strong partnerships.

Our partnership with TPP highlights the exact reason NZFN exists - to make donating product easy for donors and to help them have an even greater reach and positive impact in the community.

"We are playing to our strengths, and we can have more impact if we join forces' - Kate Speedy, NZFN Account Manager."

Two specific situations include:

Situation 1:

A 15-pallet donation of period products from The Warehouse Group stored in a Christchurch 3PL, requiring the team to travel down the country to sort and distribute it.

Solution:

We swiftly moved the 15 pallets to our Rolleston warehouse, where they were sorted and distributed to community organisations all over the South Island through our network of Food Hubs.

Situation 2:

$50,000 worth of reusable period product donated by ModiBodi that needed sorting and repacking before going out into the Auckland community.

Solution:

The product was sorted and repacked with a group of volunteers from our local Food Hubs in our Auckland warehouse. These hubs also took part in an educational workshop on the benefits and barriers of reusable underwear, along with care instructions, knowledge they could use when working with product recipients.

This resulted in 955 items of period underwear going straight to people who would otherwise not have access to these reusable products – a huge win!

Collaborating for the community

The impact of this new partnership has started to make its way into our communities, helping Kiwis far and wide. A particular highlight was our ability to help several Auckland families in urgent need of products, which you can read about below:

"One single-parent family of six menstruators was spending over $300 a month on period products. In a collaboration with The Period Place, New Zealand Food Network and the Salvation Army, we were able to provide each menstruator with seven pairs of underwear, enabling them to manage their periods in a minimal-cost, sustainable way."

“Thank you so much for your generosity and for helping us. This has changed our lives. For the first time this year I was able to buy chicken.”

- The Period Place and a donation recipient supported by The Salvation Army

"A solo parent on the benefit told us that her two daughters miss school for their whole period cycle each month…Her school controls how many pads are made available, and they say that every morning they are all taken by the other students. Mum is on the “Supported Living Payment’’ due to MS. About 6 weeks ago when one of the girls was not at school due to her period, the school called and made her feel like a failure because she was not able to afford period products. The male teacher that called said it was a basic need that she should be providing. After this, the older girl then went to the local supermarket and attempted to steal a pack of pads. Thankfully, I had a good relationship with the store and the duty manager called me and not the police and asked if TSA could do anything to help. Thank you again for the donation of period items to our centre. It has really been a huge help. Thank you for talking about this subject. It is such a dismissed topic."

- Karreena Morris, Welfare Assessor and Foodbank Coordinator at The Salvation Army Waitakere

"We get a lot of young mums and young women experiencing extreme financial hardship coming in, and period products are one of the last things they think to buy - they’d rather feed their families. It’s also very difficult when you’re trying to do what’s best for the environment, but may not be able to afford it. And it’s not something you can just look at next month, it’s a now problem."

- Nicci Eaglestone, Food Security Manager at The Salvation Army

With something as essential as period products often being left out of the shopping trolley due to the current cost of living, we’re super grateful to be partnered with The Period Place. The hard-working team are making period products more accessible for these families while leading the way towards a place of menstrual equity and safe spaces of stigma-free conversations in Aotearoa, something we are very proud to be a part of.