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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato joined by my colleague Jacqui Tricarico.

Jacqui, we're about to see a conversation we had on period poverty with three leaders who understand this issue and are dealing with it directly: Emma Joy, who is the Co-Founder of Girls Helping Girls.

Period; State Assemblywoman Shanique Speight, who is a legislator dealing with period poverty, just had a piece of legislation passed into law; and Bridget Cutler from Moms Helping Moms.

What struck you about that conversation, this conversation people are about to see, and why it matters so much about period poverty?

- It's such an important discussion, Steve, because period poverty is often referred to as a neglected public health issue, and it really is.

But these three women, these three panelists on this discussion, are really at the forefront trying to make change.

When you're talking about period poverty, a lot of people don't really realize what that is and when we're looking at the numbers, it's estimated that 16.9 million menstruating women in the United States live in poverty, and 2/3 of which are low income and food insecure women who just cannot afford the basic menstrual products that they need every single month to be able to live and work and go to school comfortably.

And it's such a huge issue that there's still a lot of lack of data on to really be able to measure the real impact that this has on women's health.

But, you know, looking at these three women, they're at the forefront.

A lot of other nonprofits, especially here in New Jersey, are starting to make period poverty a priority, and what they're doing, I know another one of our funders, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey now has a period poverty initiative, and homeless shelters throughout the state are now required to make sure menstrual products are available throughout homeless shelters for people who need them.

But really important discussion that you have with these three panelists that dives deeper into this public health issue.

- You won't hear a lot of discussion about period poverty, but it is incredibly important, and these three leaders who spoke about it, as Jacqui teed up so well, really get to the heart of the problem and what needs to be done to address it.

Period poverty.

Let's check it out.

- Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We're talking for the next half hour about period poverty.

What is it, why it matters, and what needs to be done to address it.

We're joined by a distinguished panel.

First, once again, Emma Joy, who is the Co-Founder of Girls Helping Girls Period.

State Assemblywoman Shanique Speight who is a Democrat.

She's the Assembly Deputy Speaker and represents the 29th Legislative District, largely in Newark, New Jersey, and surrounding areas.

And, finally, Bridget Cutler is Founder and Co-Executive Director of Moms Helping Moms.

All three of you, thank you so much for joining us.

Let's put this in perspective.

Emma, you were with us last time.

You're one of the Russ Berrie Making a Difference awardees along with Bridget.

What is period poverty, and why is it so critically important that we discuss it today and have more meaningful dialogue moving forward?

- Absolutely.

So period poverty, most widely known, is known as somebody's inability to access the proper products that they need to menstrual their menstrual cycle.

Now, this is a huge issue that is really coming into the light in the last 10 years because we're seeing that it affects so many people in so many different communities.

It's not just people living in poverty, but in fact people from all different backgrounds living in all different statuses.

And in large, it also affects people who go to school and work and aren't able to attend those things because of their periods.

- And we're gonna talk to the Assemblywoman about what she's doing in that regard.

But, Emma, describe Girls Helping Girls Period.

What is it?

The website will come up.

- Sure.

So Girls Helping Girls Period is a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization that was founded about 10 years ago.

And we work to supply menstruators with products that they need to manage their periods.

But right now we're really focused on education and making people aware of period poverty and working with school districts to get free products in restrooms at schools.

- And use those websites, folks, to find out more.

Bridget, Moms Helping Moms is what?

And it's evolved since the last time we talked in a lot of ways, but connected to period poverty.

Please, Bridget, tell us what Moms Helping Moms is.

- Sure.

So Moms Helping Moms is a New Jersey-based diaper, baby supply, and now menstrual supply bank.

So we have been around since 2015.

We were doing just diapers and baby supplies until about 2019.

There's a similar issue with diapers that there is with pureed products, and that is the lack of them is preventing young people from attending school and preventing adults from going to work.

So we realized in 2019 when this became a bigger issue, we had been hearing about it that it fit perfectly within our model of helping babies and their families thrive, just be able to live their normal life, just be able to support their families.

So what we do is actually supply the products to families who are living in underserved and underrepresented communities so that they can go out and go to their job, they're not missing work regularly, young people are not missing school regularly.

We also do some advocacy work, but we are pretty strongly focused on the products.

- Speaking of advocacy, State Assemblywoman Speight is a leader in this area.

It's not my opinion, it's a fact.

She is not just talking about it but proposing specific legislation.

Before we talk about the legislation, Assemblywoman Speight, describe your personal connection to period poverty and why this is so personal and governmental for you, please.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

I always go back to how I grew up and some obstacles that I faced growing up.

At one point, my mother was homeless.

We was living in a shelter, and she could not afford food.

And it was certain things that I wasn't clear about growing up, but I was clear about if she couldn't afford food I knew that she possibly couldn't afford menstrual products.

And I don't remember seeing products too much when I was younger while we was in shelters or living at the YMCA.

So I saw the struggle that my mom went through growing up and being homeless and not being able to afford certain things.

- I'm not gonna make this personal, but I need to connect it back in this way.

Our daughter is 13, along with millions of other 13-year-olds, younger, older, whatever, dealing with this issue.

I remember my wife had substantive conversations with our daughter, and menstrual products around the house?

Accessible, available.

So I didn't think very much about it.

To what degree, Emma, do we need to engage folks who haven't had to deal with this?

It's right there.

The money is there to purchase what you need, the awareness, the family structure, all that.

But that's not the case for millions and millions of young women and their families.

Emma, deliver a message to those who think, "Come on, what's the big issue here?"

- Absolutely.

I mean, in my eyes, I think education plays a vital role in this problem.

And basic fact is that people are missing out on education because they have to deal with managing their periods if they don't have products.

But also it's the way the system has worked.

- What do you mean?

- In schools, we keep products in nurses' offices.

And it's routine that if you have your period, you're supposed to leave class, and if you don't have the products you need, you need to go find it.

And sometimes it's waiting in the nurse's office to get something that should just be available in the bathroom.

So we believe at Girls Helping Girls Period that it's the stigma and the way that we've dealt with this for so long that's enabled us to become unaware of what problems we've created.

And it's not that we've been doing it on purpose, it's just it's the way we've always been taught.

So we think that really breaking the system and creating a new way to distribute these products, like what Assemblywoman Speight- - We're gonna talk about that now.

- Yeah, so I think that's a key part of that.

- Sorry to interrupt, Bridget, I'm gonna come back to you.

But, Assemblywoman, that's it right there.

That's not it, there's more to it than that.

You have proposed legislation, and tell us where it is, that says, "No, no, "it's not simply going to the nurse's office.

"These menstrual products "need to be available in our schools, "accessible, available."

Talk about what it is, where it is, and why this is so critically important.

First of all, what's the legislation say?

- So I know the governor, he signed the bill last year for products in schools.

However, even with that legislation, and I kind of like look at it in detail, products in school, it can be in school, and like Emma said, do we want it in a nurse's office?

So even with the bill being signed into law, we gotta make sure the implementation of this legislation.

- Well, where is it?

Sorry for interrupting, Assemblywoman.

Are you saying...

Listen, legislation passed, signed into law means it's the law of the land in New Jersey.

We'll talk nationally in a second.

Are you now talking about implementation/execution, A and B?

Are you saying some schools are resisting?

- No, so what I'm saying is, being that it was just signed into law last year, it doesn't supposed to be implemented, the bill doesn't supposed to be implemented until this year, September.

However, the bill does not instruct the schools on how to implement and how it would be distributed in the school.

And that's so important for so many young girls.

- How should it be, Assemblywoman?

How should it be administered and implemented?

- My thought process when we doing legislation like this is making sure that you have a dispenser in the bathroom so that girls will not be embarrassed to go to the nurse's office to ask for these products.

'Cause oftentimes they are.

Making sure they're in all bathrooms, accessible.

And also just having a resource guide on how to use a maxi pad or how to use the tampon so that they don't have to go and ask nobody.

- I'm sorry for interrupting, Assemblywoman.

Is it right there where the products are?

Where would they find that information?

- I did some legislation so that it can be a resource guide right in the bathrooms and showing girls how to take care of themselves.

So that's something else that I'm actually working on because I know the bill was signed to law, but implementation of the law is always important for me.

- Bridget, jump back in.

- Well, it's interesting.

I don't know if I'm going off topic 'cause I lost you for a minute, but you had mentioned earlier, "Why are these things not happening?

"Why do we have these problems, "and why is this so important for us to advocate?"

And if I could take this kind of from a wider lens, at the end of the day, most of the people who are making these decisions are not people who menstruate.

I think if that were different, if both men and women and all people who menstruate experienced this, this would not be an issue.

- Hold on, Bridget.

Are you saying it's not an accident that Assemblywoman Speight, a woman of color, is the leader in the state legislature on this issue?

Not an accident?

- It's not an accident because clearly we all know that menstruation is women and other people menstruate, men do not menstruate.

This problem also disproportionately affects BIPOC community.

So, no, I do not think it's an accident that it's a female from the BIPOC community who also has experienced homelessness and poverty who's the one who's... - Define that community again.

That's the?

- So BIPOC community.

So Black, Indigenous, people of color it affects, especially in New Jersey.

So these issues also can be tied to our maternal health equity in New Jersey.

And in New Jersey, we have some of the worst maternal health equity outcomes.

- Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth.

- Black women in New Jersey are 75% more likely to die during childbirth than white women.

This is not a problem.

It is a problem for many different groups, as Emma said, but it's also a problem that disproportionately affects women, certainly, and women of color even to a greater extent.

- Got it.

Before we go to break, Emma, let me ask you this.

I remember the first time we had you on, along with the other winners of the Russell Berrie Foundation Award for Making a Difference.

To what extent, even today in 2024, is one of the meaningful, substantive challenges to make real progress around period poverty, that it's just not, quote, comfortable for people, disproportionately men, to talk about even in 2024?

Go ahead.

- Yeah, I think a lot of that comes from talking about it and making people more comfortable about it.

And you can do this by simply just having conversations in your community.

We're working on this in our workshop series that we're doing with the youth.

But a lot of the times we see the educators in the room, the adults are learning just alongside the teenagers that we have in our workshops.

And you'd be shocked to realize how many adults, even menstruators, don't know how to manage their periods in a healthy, proper way.

So I think education around that and in addition, men, people who don't menstruate, is key to solving this issue.

- Period poverty, much more to talk about.

Stay with us.

Right back, right after this.

To see more Think Tank with Steve Adubato programs and to listen to Think Tank with Steve Adubato the Podcast, visit us online at steveadubato.org.

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- Welcome back, folks.

Continuing to talk about period poverty with a distinguished panel.

Let’s do this... Assemblywoman, you know what I haven't done?

I haven't asked the question, so what do young women do?

12, 13, 14, whatever age they are who don't have access to menstrual products, what are they using?

What are they doing?

Let's be specific so people understand how serious this problem is.

Assemblywoman?

- I know, and I've heard, but knowing that a lot of young girls will use toilet tissue, and depending on how bad you bleed, toilet tissue is actually not enough to even hold the amount of blood that comes in tissue that you use.

I've also heard that you have young girls that possibly use like a rag, and bring a rag to school to possibly change two or three times a day.

And oftentimes, depending on how heavy you bleed, you may need more.

So tissue is not healthy or a better alternative, but it's all that they have access to at that moment.

And I've often told men, I said, "Just like you go to the bathroom and you need tissue to take care of your daily needs," I said, "Women need the same thing, "and that's why it should be "as accessible as toilet tissue."

- I can't even imagine, not just from a physical or biological perspective, but the mental and emotional trauma that young women.

Emma, gimme a minute on that before we move on.

What kind of impact are we talking?

- Yeah, so not only is not changing your menstrual products at a appropriate time completely unhealthy to manage your period physically, but it has a huge emotional toll on a young woman's self-esteem.

Alongside with physical discomfort, there could be an odor or other health effects that then in turn would cause issues with societal repercussions.

And I wanna also address that sometimes young girls have, maybe they have one set of pads to use, but they use the same pad a whole day or sometimes we see for a whole cycle when these are products that need to be changed every four to six hours.

So it's not only lack of no products, but it's the lack of enough products to manage your period for a five-day average cycle once a month.

- Again, the websites will be up for every organization to find out more.

And Bridget, you told our producer something interesting.

You said a lack of these products is a barrier to success in school or in the workforce.

And you're talking about diapers to begin with, but now you add menstrual products.

How is this connected to a young woman's ability to lead a successful, productive, healthy life?

Bridget?

- Yeah, so if you're a young person who menstruates and you do not have the proper products, and a lot of women, not to get graphic, have a very heavy flow, and none of the things by the Assemblywoman are adequate.

So a lot of these young people stay home So, we've also talked about, they stay home from school.

If they don't have another option, they stay home.

And again, these problems disproportionately affect females, people who menstruate, and oftentimes members of BIPOC communities, who are oftentimes already in under-resourced school districts and under-resourced schools.

So now you're taking these kids that have already started with a big hurdle of not having a well-funded school, and now I don't care if that is the smartest kid in that school, if that child is missing one week of school every month, there is absolutely no way they're going to live up to their full potential.

So, I have a 11-year-old and a 13-year-old, and when they miss a day of school, I mean, it is chaotic trying to figure out what they miss, and one one day.

Yeah, so we're robbing them of their ability to reach their full potential in school if we're not allowing them to be there 100% of the time.

It's as simple as that.

- Yeah, so let me ask you this.

Obviously you talked about earlier why this is so important to you on so many levels as a state representative, on a personal, governmental public policy perspective.

To what degree do you find your colleagues in the state legislature, I mean, it did pass.

I wanna be clear, did it pass?

Was there any opposition to this?

- No, it was not a opposition, and I'm grateful for that.

I know a lot of men did not really like to talk about it 'cause they did not know how to talk about it.

So when this piece of legislation and some other pieces of legislation came up, I actually had bipartisan support, and yes, on all levels of like pieces of legislation that I'm doing that relates to menstrual health and period poverty.

Emma, I wanna pull you, bring you back in.

To what extent do you believe this issue about period poverty is connected to a larger set of issues around women's rights?

- Well, like some, I think Bridget mentioned earlier, the men that are in power that are creating the legislation around this system, it's the men that run school districts predominantly in New Jersey.

And I think that period poverty is a solvable issue.

It totally is.

It just requires that we all work together.

It requires that people will learn their faults and learn how to create a new system of change.

And I think that you can directly connect that to any issue that relates to women's rights, absolutely.

- Assemblywoman, jump back in.

- Oh, I'll definitely have to agree with what Emma just said, but it's basically the lack of a diverse representation, and it's the gap that hinders the advancement of policy.

- Last question I have.

To what degree, Bridget, do you believe there's reason to be optimistic and hopeful that this issue of period poverty, I'm not gonna say will be solved, because that's a subjective determination, that will make real, meaningful, significant progress to help women, young women, disproportionately in urban communities and who are Black and Brown, please?

- You know, there's absolutely hope, especially with the bill that was just passed in August 2023 with the public schools and the bill.

There was another bill I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, to put products in homeless shelters as well.

- Homeless shelters, yes.

Is that- - So we're seeing- - Is that bill?

I'm sorry, one second.

Assemblywoman, is that bill a law?

- Yes, it is a law.

- Pick up the point, Bridget.

- So, we are seeing progress for sure.

And when you have, you know, strong, loud women like us three kind of on the front lines of this battle, we are the reason why this is happening.

I'm not gonna take any sort of personal responsibility for the bill that passed, but I was involved in meetings.

You know, we're all talking.

We all realize that we need to work together to get these things done, because I mean, just look at the history.

You know, our government is not representative of our country, and until it is, everybody's needs are not going to be met.

You know, you have to almost wonder, with the way things are now, does everybody want equality?

Does everybody want the same number of women and men?

You know, it almost makes you question that.

But again, you know, for people like us who are just kind of doing this work every day, we just, we're putting our heads down and we're still doing it.

Because of women like us, because of the other, so many women that I've met and other people working in this field, I have a lot of hope.

It's just a little slower than you would hope.

- A few seconds left.

Reason, the reason for Hope, Emma, is?

- I think Bridget made a great point, but I think the reason for hope is to provide a fair, educational right to everyone in the State of New Jersey and hopefully everyone nationally, internationally.

And a message of hope is that this is a solvable problem and we have the tools we need to solve it.

We just have to work together in order to get it done.

- Assemblywoman, final words.

- I would definitely have to say that my hope is that all women have access, and it should not be a hindrance or a hard for women to get access here in our state.

We've been fighting for so many other issues, but when we talk about half of the population menstruating, this need to be a normal and simple conversation.

We need to have it at ease and know that this is a part of our life and a part of our state lives.

- Assemblywoman Speight, Bridget Cutler and Emma Joy, and I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

It will not be the last conversation, program we will have on this critically important issue.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- And thank you folks for watching.

I'm Steve Adubato.

That is a terrific panel.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

PNC Foundation.

The North Ward Center.

And by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

At the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, we are working now more than ever to fill the emptiness caused by hunger.

We are the state's largest anti-hunger organization.

And together with our 800 plus community partners, we are committed to delivering food, help, and hope, to our hundreds and thousands of neighbors in need.