By Sarah Chakales
Published: Aug. 21, 2024, 12onyourside.com
PETERSBURG, Va. (WWBT)

The “Hope in a Backpack” initiative is designed to help girls miss fewer school days.

“Period poverty, although often overlooked, is a growing public health crisis that affects over one-third of American women and girls,” Dignity Grows President and COO Jennifer Tolman said. “And it limits or creates barriers to access to monthly menstrual health products.”

The nonprofit is partnering with Bon Secours, Communities in Schools, Petersburg City Public Schools and other community partners to supply personal hygiene bags to all girls in the school division from 7th to 12th grade.

“That’s a thousand bags,” Tolman added.

Communities in Schools Site Coordinator Kortez Dixon helped hand out the bags to Petersburg High School senior girls first.

“They were very excited. You could hear the gasps around the room like, ‘Oh my God, for real? Like, oh my God, thank you!’ They were very gracious,” Dixon said. “It put a smile on my to see how appreciative they were.”

“We know that when students don’t have access to hygiene products – in particular, menstrual hygiene products – that really limits their ability to attend school routinely and to be fully involved and engaged in learning,” Tolman said. “We knew that from the Petersburg community that this need was prevalent in the schools here.”

The bags hold about a month’s supply of six different hygiene products.

“Soap, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste, hand wipes and deodorant, as well as two full packages of period products,” Tolman said. “It’s a full month’s supply of all basic hygiene needs.”

Bon Secours made the contents of the pilot program bags possible.

“We know that for a girl who is impacted by period poverty and routinely doesn’t have access to period products, she’s missing school an average of 145 total days by the end of her 12th-grade year,” Tolman said. “That’s a really significant gap in education and it really widens the gender equity gap in our schools.”

Dignity Grows said that providing students with crucial supplies in 64 areas across the country has seen chronic absenteeism among female students drop by 23%

“Removing any obstacles that are keeping our students from being successful,” Communities in Schools Director of Program Operations for Petersburg Jamaal Ellison said.

Dignity Grows and its Petersburg partners are hoping to make this a regular offering for students, but said they need the community’s financial support to make it possible.

Copyright 2024 WWBT. All rights reserved.

Published: May 14, 2025
Author: NBC CT

The unmistakable yellow checkered support system on wheels is an innovation of Dignity Grows that provides crucial hygiene essentials—namely period products—to women, girls, and, families in need.