Businesses, unions, universities and colleges all came together to support the annual Period Promise campaign organized by the Burnaby-based United Way of the Lower Mainland. The campaign’s goal is twofold: raise awareness about the challenges people living in poverty face trying to access menstrual products and mobilize the community to break down these barriers.
Between March 7 and April 4, participating groups were asked to collect menstrual products and to commit to providing free menstrual products at their workplaces, according to a press release. This year, the campaign netted an estimated 500,000 menstrual products, nearly twice as many as were collected in 2018, according to the United Way of the Lower Mainland.
“We are blown away by the support we’ve received,” said Sussanne Skidmore, secretary-treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour and co-chair of this year’s campaign, in the release.
“People clearly care about tackling period poverty,” she added. “We’ve made a major impact when it comes to ending stigma and isolation.”
