HARTFORD, CONN. – On Monday, March 11, 2024, at 10:00 am, representatives from Dignity Grows, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, and Connecticut Foodshare marked the expansion of Dignity Grows’ Hope in a Bag program. The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation supported Dignity Grows with a $75,000 grant for their Hope in a Bag program, which will provide hygiene support for food pantry clients. This new initiative brings one-of-a-kind detailed attention to the wider effects of hunger and socioeconomic fragility on a household by pairing food and hygiene support.
Chrysalis Center’s Freshplace food pantry celebrated their participation in the new collaboration. Within the first few months alone, clients of nearly 2 dozen new food pantries will receive free hygiene products from Dignity Grows, including soap, shampoo, deodorant, and full packages of sanitary pads. According to FreshPlace staff, “Guests are always requesting hygiene items, especially period supplies, but food pantries rarely have access to those products.”
The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation supported Dignity Grows through their Awareness Date Giving Initiative, in honor of Women’s History Month.
Dignity Grows hygiene totes are a staple in food pantries across the USA, with an increased number in the Hartford region.
“Access to hygiene and menstrual products is essential for health and well-being,” said Alex Cohen, President of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. “We are proud to support Dignity Grows and help provide the items that people need to thrive.”
“Eliminating Period Poverty and hygiene inequity are the first steps to breaking a family’s cycle of poverty,” asserts Jessica Zachs, Chair & CEO of Dignity Grows. “The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation’s generosity means thousands more Connecticut residents will be able to meet these basic human needs each month.”
RJ Mercede of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and Jennifer Tolman of Dignity Grows welcomed the first hygiene products for free distribution to the Freshplace food pantry.
The Dignity Grows / CT Foodshare partnership pilot program, set to serve 6,000 Hartford region families this year, is poised to expand statewide in 2025 and begin serving a national network soon thereafter. As the Hartford-based national nonprofit leader in the fight against hygiene inequity and Period Poverty, Dignity Grows is scaling their existing free product support services through this program.
“The intersections of food insecurity and hygiene inequity – and most notably Period Poverty – often go unnoticed, but are critical to a household’s stability,” according to CT Foodshare President & CEO and Chair of Feeding America’s National Policy Engagement & Advocacy Committee, Jason Jakubowski. “It is an honor to partner with a powerhouse like Dignity Grows to uplift the lives of so many individuals and families.”