Two Prairie High School juniors have started a campaign that collects feminine hygiene products for homeless women and aims to spread awareness of the need for the products in high school.
Malina Pham and Melody Brizuela launched the Her Drive, which also aims to combat the stigma some women face. The items collected are donated to SHARE Vancouver and Valley Homestead.
Pham found inspiration for the drive when she was browsing through social media.
“I actually found the Her Drive on TikTok,” said Pham. “I found it really interesting and I really wanted to bring that to our community, so I just decided to join with the Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA) and make one here.”
Pham said the drive has received a lot of positive feedback and was glad HOSA was able to help kickstart the campaign. Brizuela agreed.
“I think it’s made a huge impact,” Brizuela said. “We have three full boxes, and I was really nervous at first because of the boys here, and I didn’t know how they’d react, like saying, ‘periods are gross,’ or something. But it’s been a really positive thing and brought up the conversation that women go through periods every month and that’s normal.”
Pham said it’s been a positive experience for the community, bringing up the “taboo” conversation about periods.
“It brought a positive impact on (knowing) how things work and now people are starting to realize that it’s such a normal thing that everybody has,” she said.
Pham hopes future students will continue the drive once they leave Prairie High School. She would also like to see the drive at other schools.
Besides tampons, people have also donated deodorant, bras, hairspray, shampoo and conditioner. Pham and Brizuela said they’re involved in other causes like blood drives and food drives as well. After high school, Brizuela plans to go to a four-year college to major in biochemistry. Pham plans to go to a two-year college and later transfer to a four-year school to study audio recording.
In a news release sent out by the school district, Pham said feminine products should be more widely available.
“It shouldn’t be a privilege to be able to afford these kinds of products,” Pham stated in the release. “People need it. Everyone should be able to afford period products regardless of age and income.”
Melissa Levine, a family and consumer science teacher and adviser for the school’s HOSA program, is excited about the drive’s success.
“I’m super proud of them,” said Levine. “It’s been uncharted territory for our school, so I think they were really nervous about it, but they executed it very well. It’s been really respectful and respected on the campus so that’s been exciting.”
Levine said she was not involved in the pitching process of the drive to the school board which landed on the shoulders of Pham and Brizuela.
Levine said the male students were “shocked” when they discovered the large variety of feminine products, the prices, and “all the things they never had to access before.” She said it was an “eye-opening experience” for them, which Levine aims to normalize for students moving forward.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, she said the ability for the club to hold community-building activities has been difficult.
“We’ve done things from soup kitchens to working at homeless shelters, but COVID has been very difficult when it comes to those things so we’ve really just been focused on building a positive environment here at Prairie High School,” Levine said.
HOSA will host a blood drive on April 22 since the previously scheduled drive on Jan. 28 was canceled. Further details about the drive will be released at a later time.
