LAKELAND, Fla. — It’s a subject teenagers have always struggled to talk about — getting your period.
But two women in Lakeland are joining forces to making growing up a little easier.
Laura Davis, a 30-something still giggles when it’s said out loud.
‘Period’ is a term that still as an adult, women feel funky talking about with each other, much-less shopping for supplies in public.
Don’t get ladies wrong, they’ve become much more comfortable about the subject since the teen years but it’s still a topic hardly talked about universally.
For young girls navigating middle and high school, it’s even more tricky.
“It’s just a really scary thing and you don’t really know,” Laura Davis said. She says her experience in middle school was far from a breeze.
“When I was 13 years old I was like 'ooh I’m not saying anything to anybody about that thing,'” Davis said, while still laughing.
Getting your menstrual cycle for the first time and at school can be even more traumatizing for girls, without anyone noticing.
Once girls, now women, Laura Davis and her friend who is a teacher in Lakeland know the feeling.
And Amelia Hart, a teacher at Blake Academy, has noticed when her female students are in need or feel awkward asking for help.
“Since my first year of teaching, I have been keeping pads in my office for girls who are in need,” Hart said, as she showed ABC Action News a door stashed with pads and other items students may need in a pinch.
So when Davis realized she had way too many Ipsy bags from her monthly subscription to a makeup company — she decided she would put them to good use.
Her friend and teacher at Blake Academy knew just what to do with them.
The fashionable bags would become a cute way to disguise period supplies and hand them out to girls so other students wouldn’t realize.
“The logical thing would be to go to a teacher and go ya know, 'hey teacher,'” Davis said.
The women haven’t decided how or whom to distribute them to yet, but they believe every teacher including males should have a backup supply for their female students.
After asking for donations of Ipsy bags and other items to fill the sacs with, Davis now has over 170 bags but not enough product to fill them with.
“All of a sudden I just had bags everywhere,” Davis said.
Now, instead of wasting time at the nurse, and getting up the nerves to ask, Mrs. Hart says girls can now walk in and ask for an Ipsy bag.
“They are actually able to be in the class learning, they can just head to the bathroom, do what they need to do and they don’t lose any learning time,” Hart said.
It's an innovative idea to inspire young girls to be themselves while they succeed at school.
“I was just kind of hoping to find a way to normalize it,” Davis said.
If you’d like to help —join Davis and Hart on Facebook at Hello Flo.
Or check out their website here.
You can drop off at:
The Ledger
300 West Lime Street in Lakeland
or
Scout & Tag
244 North Kentucky Avenue, Lakeland Florida