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A woman collects pads from a food bank in New York City.
Photo credit: Food Bank for NYC Blog
Period poverty in New York's Capital Region
From the capital of New York to Sub-Saharan Africa, women can't afford to manage their cycles
By Abby Lorch
SCHENECTADY — Millions of girls and women worldwide struggle with “period poverty”: a lack of access to feminine hygiene materials, often compounded by inadequate education on menstrual health. Because the problem is most severe abroad, many Americans don’t see it as a domestic concern. But with inflation driving up costs, period poverty hits close to home—even in the Capital Region of New York, a leading state in gender equality.​
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“New York is the most expensive state in the country to menstruate in, and there are a lot of people who just can’t afford it,” said Ellie von Wellsheim of the MoonCatcher Project, an organization working to reduce period poverty in the Capital District and abroad. “What ends up happening is that they use other materials, unhygienic ones, and get infections. Or they stay home and don’t continue with their lives. Kids stay home from school; people stay home from work. It’s a poverty issue.”
Von Wellsheim has been fighting period poverty overseas since 2011, but the MoonCatcher Project began sharing its resources with local girls and women just three years ago. In addition to its main mission of distributing reusable, washable menstrual management kits to girls in Africa, Asia, and parts of the Caribbean and South America, the organization manages seven period pantries—small caches of free tampons and pads—in Schenectady and Albany.
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Though reusable kits work well in other countries where women hang their laundry out on clotheslines, most Americans who menstruate rely on disposable period products. In New York, proper sanitary care costs nearly $16 per period, and free hygienic materials are hard to come by anywhere in this country. Without community pantries, homeless and impoverished women often have to make do with the few, if any, tampons and sanitary pads remaining at their local shelters.
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“The demand is unbelievable. We get phone calls every day from people asking us to open new pantries. The supplies go so fast. From June to December last year, we gave away 30,000 pieces,” von Wellsheim said. “We can hardly keep up with the need. We’re doing what we can, but it’s a very serious problem in the United States, even though people like to think it’s happening elsewhere.”
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Roz Dahl of Niskayuna has been volunteering with the MoonCatcher Project for two years. She is responsible for stocking one of its period pantries once a week. Dahl was surprised to learn how many upstate New Yorkers cannot afford to manage their cycles on their own.
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“I have spoken to a couple people when I’ve been stocking the pantry, you know, locals who are very grateful because it’s expensive to buy menstrual products on top of food and everything else,” Dahl said. “Our pantries make a difference. I hope that our efforts keep women in power, so that the period doesn’t have to get them behind on things. It is a simple difference between men and women, and it shouldn’t be something that holds us back, but it is… even here.”
A pantry containing free menstrual supplies outside Hometown Health on State Street in Schenectady was almost empty Friday afternoon, with only two tampons left.
Credit: Abby Lorch
​Omiyea Stanford, a sexual health educator for Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, explained that financial insecurity isn’t the only factor contributing to the local issue.
“Period poverty isn’t just a monetary disadvantage,” Stanford said. “It also affects those who can’t access products despite being able to afford them and those who don’t receive the proper education or have access to health care infrastructure to maintain their period health. People in isolated or rural communities, which is true of many communities in upstate New York, have less access to those necessities.”
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Stanford attributed the lack of awareness about menstruation to the absence of comprehensive sex education mandates in New York and other states. Planned Parenthood has been advocating for such a requirement in the New York state legislature, to little effect. Contrary to popular belief, Stanford said period stigma is still alive and well in New York because misogyny and patriarchy are still alive and well in the world.
“When it comes to how people get educated about periods or any other type of sexual health, it really does just depend on the school and what they’re learning in health class or biology,” Stanford said. “A lot of times, people just don’t get taught about it at all. Or if they do, it’s not quite accurate—very negative and stigmatizing.”
According to Stanford, the best way to address the issue at the root of period poverty would be a statewide comprehensive sex education mandate. She argued that centering education could “really light a fire in the community” and mitigate the recent wave of conservatism surrounding what kids should be taught in school. Stanford also has an idea about how to alleviate period poverty in the meantime, while structural changes are being made: reusables.
“Reusables allow people to potentially use the same product for years and years without having to spend more funds,” Stanford said. “Pads and tampons and disposable discs are great for the one-time use, but then they’re always going to need more. With washable cups, discs and underwear, people get something that they can keep and that’s going to keep working for them down the line. It’s also more sustainable, because it’s built to last rather than go right into the trash."​
Map shows U.S. states (in red) that tax
feminine hygiene products in 2025.
Credit: Abby Lorch
​Of course, reusables have their own limitations that complicate their potential to solve period poverty. They’re more expensive and less ubiquitous than pads and tampons; most period pantries, including the seven in the Capital Region, do not stock reusable items. For reusables to make a true dent in the problem, there will need to be a more robust and better funded distribution network to put free cups, discs and period underwear in the hands of those who need them. Currently, locals are unlikely to find complementary reusables except at Planned Parenthood locations and programs.
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Reusables also come with a significant caveat: Users must be able to keep them clean. Women who experience period poverty due to housing insecurity, for instance, may not benefit from receiving a free reusable product if they do not have access to a washing machine or running water. Though innovations are constantly being made to enhance the convenience and cleanliness of period products, people who menstruate are missing out on their lives in the meantime.
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Domestic progress has been made to combat period poverty, in spite of many Americans' narrow perspective on the issue. As of last year, all New York State public schools must stock their restrooms with free menstrual products. Resources like the MoonCatcher Project exist all over the country and world to alleviate the scourge, but until everyone has the means to manage their period, the cost of menstruation will be too high.
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“Anybody who menstruates and doesn’t have access to supplies has it rough. That means you can’t be in your community. You can’t just lead your regular life. You’re stuck at home,” von Wellsheim said. “That’s discriminatory, and it keeps women down. We need to develop strategies to combat that in our own towns and cities.”​​
Period poverty: A global issue
When people can't afford menstrual management materials, their lives and health suffer.
Credit: Alexandra Adler/Garnet & Black
While the main causes of period poverty in the United States are economic, girls and women in foreign countries also have to deal with disproportionate cultural stigma and insufficient education about the menstrual cycle. In Malawi, for example, the shame associated with menstruation is so strong that parents don’t even mention it to their children. In India, 77% of girls know nothing about their periods until they start bleeding. In Afghanistan, women are told not to shower during their periods, lest they become infertile.
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When von Wellsheim started her project, her primary goal was to create something to keep girls across the world in school and allow them to meaningfully participate in their lives during menstruation. She was troubled by some nations’ harmful period practices.
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“What I found out was that they were using things like rags and banana leaves and ash and dung and plastic bags and old clothes, and digging holes in the ground and sitting in them for three to seven days,” von Wellsheim said. “In some countries, you get kicked out of your house and have to go menstruate in a hut. You can’t touch anybody. Your diet is restricted.”
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Von Wellsheim added that girls in Africa and India often miss school because of their periods, which adds up to 45 to 50 lost days of instruction per year. This leads to them dropping out, being married off, and becoming young mothers, which only perpetuates the cycle of poverty.
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“Our MoonCatcher kit interrupts that cycle so at least this one problem is completely solved. She always will have a way to deal with the period because she can wash that out over and over again,” von Wellsheim said. “When we give it to her, we teach a curriculum about menstrual management and reproductive health and we answer questions. The project is 12 years old, so we’ve been able to watch some of these girls actually graduate from high school and go on to college. Some of them have finished that, and they’re doctors or IT experts or whatever.”
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The MoonCatcher kit was designed and has been refined to suit various cultures. It ties around the waist and can be worn without underwear, which is a luxury many people cannot afford. It’s washable, comfortable and discreet. It’s also environmentally friendly, as it doesn’t end up in a landfill. Since the inception of the project, MoonCatcher Kits have been distributed to girls in India, Pakistan, Honduras, Haiti, and over 20 African countries. Michelle Obama once personally delivered the kits to citizens of Liberia.
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At least once a month, von Wellsheim and her collaborators host a public “MoonBee,” an event where volunteers can help create MoonCatcher Kits for women and girls in need. They have also set up sewing cooperatives, where workers are paid to make the kits, in countries including Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, India and the Philippines.
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The most recent MoonBee was held Friday, Feb. 21 at the Schenectady Public Library and attended by 20 volunteers. Von Wellsheim has been pleasantly surprised by how many people have been willing to help with the initiative over the years. She has even recruited others to travel to Africa with her and teach menstrual management lessons, occasionally provoking resistance from locals in the process.
Some parents in Africa and Asia object to their children being taught about menstruation. Many schools won’t allow lessons or kits to be given to girls who haven’t started bleeding yet. Still, von Wellsheim and her fellow educators manage to work around cultural stigma to give kids the information they need.
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“I wanted these girls not to just get something to manage their period. I wanted them to know why they menstruate, how to take care of themselves, how to be responsible, how to make good decisions,” von Wellsheim said. “We are not a religious organization. What we teach is science: This is what happens to your body, and this is what it means in your community, in your culture.”
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John Moore, a MoonCatcher Project volunteer from Schenectady, likes to sew. He has been helping to produce MoonCatcher Kits for years by bringing his spare sewing machines to MoonBees and teaching others to make the kits. He noted that tackling period poverty overseas and intervening within American borders are two entirely different challenges.
“As soon as I understood the scale of the problem, I wanted to help. I was shocked to hear that there was an issue here relating to this. I was like, ‘Wait, we’re not in India or Africa, though.’ No, and it’s still bad here. I mean, they only recently got rid of the tampon tax,” Moore said. “I hope I’ve helped some of those girls in India and Africa. Now that I’m retired, I have more time to dedicate to good causes like this.”
Assorted fabrics used in MoonCatcher Kits.
Volunteers prepare red shoelaces to be used as waist ties.
Not all MoonBee volunteers sew. Anyone can contribute by tracing outlines of pads to be incorporated in MoonCatcher kits.
