Providing a variety of essentials — including pads, tampons and liners — the 1967 Latina Run Club collaborated with Texas Rising Action to address accessibility to period products in the Austin community.
The run club hosted their second period product drive and packing party on Thursday alongside Texas Rising Action, a nonpartisan student advocacy organization, on Thursday, donating all period product kits made to the Austin Diaper Bank.
“I believe you could bring a bigger impact with not just one organization but two,” said Alexia Mendoza, a government junior and run club service chair. “I thought it’d be a great way for both of our members to get to know each other and also bring them together to something that’s bigger than us.”
The run club’s partner at the Thursday event, Texas Rising, focused on civic engagement and community impact. The partnered organizations donated funds for products and collected items from run club members to assemble the kits.
“We see the great need of feminine hygiene products being more widely accessible,” Genesis Britz, who co-founded the 1967 Latina Run Club and serves as the president of Texas Rising Action, said. “We want to mitigate the need for feminine hygiene products in Austin and make (them) free as much as possible, as much as we can.”
Mendoza said the run club was created to provide a safe and welcoming environment for women to run together while also encouraging members to give back to their community.
“There’s a lot of poverty, especially with period products, especially with homeless people because they don’t have access,” Mendoza said. “I think it’s especially important to us, especially as our mission of how the run club came to be and continuing to provide for those that really can’t provide for themselves.”
Economics freshman Alexa Moya said she enjoys community building found within events like the period product drive.
“I hope that we can see some improvement and also encourage others to also join movements like this, so that we can collectively create change and create a positive impact on those around us,” Moya said.
In the first drive held collaboratively with Texas Rising Action, donations were provided and the Latina Run Club only provided the labor of putting kits together. Since then, both organizations have grown. On Thursday, they donated around 100 kits themselves.
“We’re just trying to bridge that gap of making sure that if condoms can be given for free, if different supplements that men typically use can be free, then so can tampons and so can pads, any menstrual cycle necessity,” Britz said.
