Period Club is a place where people support homeless women in homeless shelters.  They give out care packages filled with helpful, important feminine hygiene products. This club is generally trying to help destigmatize menstruation by talking about it more and being more open about it and are saying that feminine products (such as pads, and tampons) should be free for women to take because of how important they are.  

The club president, Sarah Ornelas, feels so strongly about this because, of how much she loved her period and how amazing she thought it was.  When she heard about the Period Club, she was so happy “Finally! People who want to talk about menstruation,” she said. She goes on explaining how good it feels to help people in need and how amazing, caring, and selfless the people in the club are.  Ornelas states, “[People in the club] make this a really positive environment, and people feel safe here”.

When talking about the care packages they give out, she explained that they hand out biodegradable bags filled with pads, tampons, panty-liners, and other nice things like chocolate, other candies, shampoos, and other little soaps just to make it a full care package.   

They usually go out to different locations in Portland to hand out the packages, they take different cars, or a lot of people go in one car.  After handing out the packages, they usually grab something to eat and enjoy each other’s company. They sell little pins in the commons, and they do a lot of fundraising.  They’re always trying to find more ways to better the school, like when they got tampon and pad dispensers in the female bathrooms Sarah claiming, “I want them to at least have something [they need].”

When the club is not handing out care packages, they plan, they talk about and explore more about periods, they want to educate more people about the female reproductive system since, in most health classes, it’s kind of just glanced over. If you’d like to go to the club, they meet up every Thursday at 3:30 after school in room 2115.