Community-wide effort effectively ends period poverty for 2026

By ANNA SMITH
Local Journalism Initiative on April 14, 2026.

Team members from across several organizations pose outside of Medicine Hat College on Monday after successfully meeting their goal for this year’s End Period Poverty campaign.–Photo courtesy Floppy Co. Photography

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Medicine Hat College saw menstrual products snake up and down the hall on Monday as community partners rallied to celebrate meeting a goal of eliminating period poverty within the city for the year.

MHC students, alongside members of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association, the Root cellar, the Redcliff Youth Centre and many others gathered in the main entrance of the college to reflect on the difficult decision many in the community have to make when faced with an inability to afford period products such as tampons or pads.

“The effort to address period poverty in Medicine Hat actually began 10 years ago, back in 2016,” said Tara Williams, instructor at MHC and one of the founders of the movement.

“At that time, I was regularly in the food bank for meetings, and every time I walk in, I always ask, ‘What do you bring?’ Usually the answers were peanut butter, soup, cereal, protein, which is what we often think of. But someone said menstrual products.”

Upon seeing the amount of menstrual products the food bank actually had on hand to offer those who need them however, Williams realized there was a stark deficit, and a change needed to be made. She took the information to her sport & event marketing & management class, and what came of their brainstorming session started what is now a community-wide effort.

Businesses and organizations across the city have been collecting period products for donation, with a goal of $35,000 worth of product, enough to effectively eliminate the issue within Medicine Hat for a year.

Davie James with MHSA said he was thrilled to see so many faces at the event, and the generosity of the community. MHSA has been “really fired up” about the issue following its most recent international humanitarian trip to Mexico, where one of the most important things members were able to provide to a girl’s home was much needed period products.

“When we got home, we were feeling really good about that experience, and just kind of feeling like we needed to get more active with our own community,” said James. “So we did some research with the Root Cellar over here, and we learned that there was a huge demand for period products.

“I hope we can keep this momentum and keep doing it bigger and bigger and heck, let’s cover all of southern Alberta. Let’s just eliminate this issue entirely.”
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