Substantial publicity has been given recently to the issue of period poverty, which occurs when women of limited means or mobility are unable to access feminine products that help them manage menstruation. And, when people are unable to meet life’s most basic needs, subsequent problems tend to mount quickly.

Deltasig’s Rho Chi chapter at Hawai’i-Manoa tackled the problem. According to Susan Iverson, a senior human resources management and accounting major and the chapter’s VP-Community Service, Deltasigs became the university’s first business club to provide free feminine-hygiene products in all of the restrooms at the institution’s business school. The chapter partnered with the Ma’i Movement, an organization local to their campus that assists women susceptible to period poverty.

Susan noted that approximately half of Ma’i Movement’s clients had missed work or school because of their period, and that 65% of the people the organization served were on public assistance and enrolled in SNAP or WIC programs, which subsidize food but not feminine products.

Congratulations to the brothers of Rho Chi for stepping up and helping meet a basic need that is too often overlooked.