Thousands of homeless and impoverished women experience an epidemic known as period poverty: a lack of access to sanitary products. Many women take desperate measures to fashion makeshift tampons out of whatever they can find, like old socks or paper towels. This can lead to serious health problems like toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Shoppers Drug Mart, the largest retail pharmacy chain in Canada, is committed to supporting all women’s health — even the most disenfranchised. So we set out to create an effective way to supply free tampons to homeless and impoverished women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them.

Many homeless women feel unsafe going to shelters for tampons due to abuse, harassment, exposure to drugs, and other issues. Furthermore, tampons are in limited supply in canadian shelters and only available one or two at time, forcing woman who want to stay clean to return again and again over the course of bone period. We needed a solution that provided homeless women with a way to safely and convenient acquire tampons while preserving their dignity.

We created The Monthly: tampons dispensed through upcycled newspaper boxes. We realized these disappearing yet recognizable, former newspaper delivery devices would be a discreet, private way to deliver tampons to women when and where they need them. So we reworked the boxes to dispense tampons, rather than newspapers. We outfitted the boxes with keypads and distributed the code to outreach programs. We also created a web app with the code and locations of our boxes that women via the many free wifi points in the city.

We deliberately took a targeted approach to our awareness campaign by making sure that the only people who knew about The Monthly were those who needed to — homeless women. We reached out directly to local advocacy groups, shelters, and outreach programs to spread the word and distribute the boxes’ codes and locations. We also target area of the city where homeless and impoverished woman live and handed out information about The Monthly directly to women on the street.

We worked with local government to install The Monthly ‘newspaper boxes’ on Toronto streets, in the neighborhoods that needed them the most. We began with a pilot neighbourhood and presented the finding to city council, once Toronto politicians found out about the idea, they immediately approved the development of more boxes to turn it into a citywide program. Because of the impact The Monthly has had on period poverty in Toronto, the program is expanding across Canada.

There were no likes. No hearts. No shares. No retweets. Shoppers Drug Mart has quietly promoted this effort to the women who need it. Rather than accolades for the company, SDM has measured the success of this project by the the enthusiastic support The Monthly has received by Toronto City Council -- who allowed the expansion of the program across the city. And most importantly, the need to regularly restock the boxes. Clearly the woman who need them, are getting them. Showing that The Monthly is helping to eradicate period poverty in Toronto.