Health News Florida

A Tampa woman is making menstrual products available for free

WUSF | By Stephanie Colombini

Published July 3, 2024 at 7:36 AM EDT

Tampa Period Pantry has 10 locations outside businesses in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The goal is to help people stay healthy and comfortable during their periods.

There's a grassroots effort to make menstrual products more accessible in the Tampa Bay region.

Bree Wallace founded the first Tampa Period Pantry last summer outside the Disco Dolls Studio, a sustainable department store in the Tampa neighborhood of Seminole Heights.

The pink wooden box contains items like tampons, pads, sanitary wipes and heating patches that anyone in need can take for free.

Nine more locations have opened around Hillsborough and Pinellas counties since, with a goal to address what's known as a period poverty, or the inability to afford or access menstrual products.

The Tampa Period Pantry offers free menstrual hygiene products like tampons and pads, as well as other items to help during periods like heating patches for cramps or sanitary wipes.

Research shows about a third of American adults and a quarter of teens who menstruate struggle to afford period products. For women with low incomes, that jumps up to two-thirds. In addition to cost barriers, some deal with social pressures and don't feel comfortable asking for help with menstrual hygiene.

Wallace credits a friend in Jacksonville who runs period pantrie for her inspiration to take up the cause in the Tampa region. Wallace also works with the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund, which offers financial and logistical assistance to people seeking abortion care.

Many of those clients have told Wallace they have a tough time during their periods, she said.

"A lot of the people that I work with within reproductive health are people who are low income, who are unhoused, who don't have money," she said. "So sharing this resource with them helps them at least a little bit, you know. If they have a few dollars to their name, they can use it somewhere else and use free products from here."

The Tampa Period Pantry recently created a donation box for its first location at the Disco Dolls Studio in Seminole Heights. The box is located inside the business and invites customers to drop off menstrual hygiene products for the pantry outside. — The Tampa Period Pantry recently created a donation box for its first location at the Disco Dolls Studio in Tampa's Seminole Heights neighborhood. The box is inside the business and invites customers to drop off menstrual hygiene products for the pantry outside.

Wallace mostly stocks the pantries herself, but much of the supplies are donated by the public. Some purchase items on an online wish list she set up while others drop them off at businesses that host the pantries.

The Disco Dolls Studio recently added a box for donations inside its boutique. Owner Leigh Anne Balzekas said she sometimes gets calls from people who see the pantry on the street and ask, "Is it really free? Can I just take it?"

Balzekas said she's "honored" to help ease the burden for anyone in need.

"We have to support each other, and especially as women, you know, we deal with a lot," she said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis recently vetoed $6.4 million in funding for the Menstrual Hygiene Products Grant Program, which would have provided free pads and tampons to kids in K-12 schools in Florida.