Author: tonicraige

In middle school we used to throw tampons at our male classmates (un-used tampons, of course). My girlfriends and I had all started menstruating, and we thought it was hilarious how terrified they were by a piece of cotton and plastic.

“Ewww, get that thing away from me! That’s disgusting!” they’d bellow, as the girls shrieked with laughter. I understood that it was a completely foreign object to most adolescent boys, but I wanted to help them understand: It really is just a piece of cotton, like a q-tip. It’s not disgusting and you don’t need to be afraid. So I decided to take a more educational approach, and simply hold the tampon in my hand so they could see it, touch it, and understand how it worked. At the age of thirteen, I thought it was important for everyone to have this knowledge. It’s no wonder I wound up being a spokeswoman for Sustainable Cycles.

Despite my new method, the boys still wrinkled their noses and backed away hastily. I was prepared to give up, when along came Alberto.

“Can I see?” he asked calmly.

“Yeah!” I blurted out in shock, “here you go!” And I thrust the device into his open palm.

He inspected it slowly in a clinical, curious manner. Frowning, he asks:

“So… how does it work?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You really wanna know?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

I wasn’t quite prepared to explain the details of tampon use to a boy who, admittedly I had a huge crush on, so a gave him a brief, vague answer, something along the lines of, “Oh you just shove it up there and it catches the blood.” I’ve come a long way since then in my jargon.

Alberto smiled, returned the tampon, and walked back to his friends, who were wide-eyed and open-mouthed a few feet away. They began to harass him, and he cut in:

“It’s not gross guys, it’s just somethings girls need in life. It’s totally normal. Grow up.”

Many cis-gender men are uncomfortable talking about periods. Why shouldn’t they be? When the boys at my middle school reacted so drastically to the tampon in my hand, they were only doing what society has taught them to do. If young women themselves are afraid to talk to their mothers about menstruation, how can we expect cis-men to be any better? That is why Alberto’s confidence was so profound, especially at such a young age, and he said some very key words: “It’s totally normal.” Then why do we still feel so dirty and abnormal, as people who menstruate?

At a workshop we held in Cherokee, North Carolina, one woman had multiple stories about how embarrassed she was when she’d have a menstrual emergency and need her man to run to the store for her: “He’d come back screaming, ‘Don’t ever make me do that again! I feel disgusting!’” Rachel once asked one of our friends if she used a menstrual cup, and this friend glanced awkwardly at our male friend standing next to her and said: “I don’t really want to answer that right now.”

It’s clear that we have some trouble being accepting of our cycles, and it is deemed inappropriate to discuss the matter openly. I think it is time to end the stigma and shame, and those of you who don’t menstruate can play a huge role in that.

I am absolutely delighted when I meet period positive men. It only makes sense for people of all genders to understand how our bodies work, and for our partners to be informed and supportive. I once bled on the sheets of one of my romanic partners, and instead of making me feel ashamed or humiliated, he soothed my worries and said it was no big deal: “Don’t feel bad, Olive, it happens!”

In Asheville, we had one cis-male at our workshop, and he had great questions and comments. He was very interested in all the re-usable products we had, the science behind menstruation, and what he can do when his girlfriend is experiencing pain or discomfort.

Outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Sustainable Cycles team was having a parking lot picnic, when a young man emerged from Radio Shack to ask us about our tour. We explained our project to him, and he was stoked: “Wow, that- that’s amazing! I am really interested in women’s health, my girlfriend has taught me a lot and it’s become really clear that feminism is one of the most important movements right now. You girls are doing incredible work.”

It’s unacceptable to perpetuate the culture of silence and shame around our cycles. We bleed, we cover it up, ignore it, and god forbid we talk about it, let alone with men. No matter your gender identity or expression, all of us are effected by the moon cycle- it is the origin of life! If you are a non-menstruating individual and want to learn more, please join the conversation. All voices are appreciated. It feels so incredible when your partner says “It’s okay if you bleed on my sheets,” it is so amazing when a bearded man walks out of a Radio Shack and expresses his feminist views, and it is just astounding when a twelve-year-old boy ignores his immature peers and takes the tampon.

Olive Mugalian

Monday, May 11, 2015

Written from Raleigh, North Carolina

Here’s a few photos from our adventure!

Toni Craige, one of the co-founders of SC joined us for a few days of our tour. She likes to relax!

Rosie injured her hand a took a little vacation in Alabama. This is Rosie, Olive, Rachel, and Toni at our reunion at the Greyhound bus station in Asheville, NC.

Rosie with a baby turtle. At our workshop in Cherokee, someone said that Cherokee women used to fashion menstrual cups out of baby turtle shells. Pretty cool!

Someone gave us a $100 bill at a gas station in rural North Carolina! We were eating pretty fancy for a few days!

The crew plus our host, Tammy.

Our first FaceTime workshop, at the California Student Sustainability Convergence.

From our workshop with the Job Corps girls in Cherokee.

Our March- June 2015 Tour is right around the corner and our Indiegogo campaign to raise $10,000 is in full swing!

1. Read this post about the tour.
2. Visit the Indiegogo page and make a donation
3. Check out our Facebook event for the fundraiser and invite your friends.
4. “Like” Sustainable Cycles on Facebook.
5. Get in touch if you want to be involved!

Sustainable Cycles is a collective of “spokeswomen” who travel across the country by bicycle to lead workshops about eco-friendly menstrual products.The project was started in 2011 by Sarah Konner and Toni Craige, who biked down the West Coast meeting with groups of women to discuss the cultural taboos of menstruation and pass around a show-and-tell kit of alternatives to single-use pads and tampons. The project gained momentum and a year later, Rachel Horn led a second bicycle tour, talking about periods and the environmental impact of the products we use everywhere she went.

Now, SIX WOMEN from diverse backgrounds want to take the project to the next level! Rachel and Olive from Los Angeles, Ruby and Sarah from New York City, Rosie from Australia, and Kim from South Africa are going to bike from the West Coast to Boston. Our six riders will follow two separate routes (one southern and one midwestern) from California to converge in Richmond, VA. Then we will ride in one big group up the east coast  to end at the Society of Menstrual Cycle Research’s National Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. We will present our project at the June 2015 event and network with others doing work in this field.

SO FAR, MENSTRUAL CUP AND REUSABLE CLOTH PAD COMPANIES HAVE DONATED OVER 1,000 SAMPLES FOR US TO PROMOTE AND DISTRIBUTE ON OUR TRIP! OUR SPONSORS INCLUDE DIVA CUP, LUNETTE, MY OWN CUP, RUBY CUP, AND PARTY IN MY PANTS.

During our three months on the road, we will host events in different cities along our routes and start person-to-person conversations with hundreds of women about menstrual health and alternative products. We will encourage them to switch to methods that are safer and more environmentally friendly, and spread the word to their friends and communities. Let’s break the cycle of shame and embarrassment around “cycling”!

We want your support!

We want to raise $10,000 to help cover the cost of food, bicycle maintenance, emergency repairs, and transportation to and from our start and end locations. While we are doing our best to be frugal and source used and donated gear, there are still many items we don’t yet have that will be necessities on the road, especially since we will be riding through a variety of climates and terrain. We will definitely need to replace things like tires, tubes, and brake pads as they wear out over the trip. We will also need to keep ourselves fed and watered. Remember, the money we raise will be distributed between six riders!

If you aren’t able to contribute financially at this time, please check out our list below of other donations we will gladly accept!

Why donate?

By donating to this campaign, you are supporting a cultural shift towards more environmental and health-conscious practices, as well as more open discourse surrounding women’s bodies and menstruation. We have done bike tours like this before, and we have been successful in spreading knowledge about alternative products and getting hundreds of women across the country to make the switch to reusables. We are already supported by many of the companies who manufacture these sustainable products, but we need YOUR SUPPORT to make our largest cross-country tour ever a reality!

There are many ways to contribute!

In addition to monetary contributions, we will gladly accept donations of the following (things in used condition or temporary loans are A-ok!):

-lightweight camping gear (tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, camping stoves, water purifiers, camel backs)

-Up-to-date bicycle maps of the following states: California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia

-bicycle gear (clipless shoes, lots of bike lights and batteries, warm lightweight layers, racks, panniers, safety flags and triangles, water bottles and bottle cages, toe covers, bar mitts for cold weather)

Help us make connections!

Besides the physical “stuff”, connections to potential hosts and communities who would be interested in workshops along our routes are invaluable! Know a women’s health center, bicycle coalition, social/environmental/student group, health food store, or other potentially interested party in any of the following cities or surrounding areas? Please reach out to us and let us know!

Ruby, Sarah, and Kim:

CA- San Francisco, Sacramento

NV- Carson City

UT- Salt Lake City

CO- Boulder, Denver

KS- Topeka

MS- Kansas City, St. Louis

IN- Bloomington

OH- Cincinnati

VA- Roanoke, Richmond

Rachel, Olive, and Rosie:

CA- San Diego

AZ- Phoenix

NM- Las Cruces

TX- Austin

LA- New Orleans

MS- Jackson

AL- Montgomery

GA- Atlanta

NC- Asheville

ALL:

DC- Washington

PA- Philadelphia

NYC and Boston- we have many connections here already, but we’d be happy to make more! :)
Please share our campaign with your friends and pass the word along about our project! 

After a whirlwind of a summer, we are, a little belatedly, finishing our post from the SMCR Conference from early June.

Sounds quirky, but believe it or not, there were over 200 people at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in NYC in early June.  Sarah and I have been looking forward to this conference for two years!  The Society has been facilitating multidisciplinary dialogue and research about the importance of the menstrual cycle to women’s health since 1979.  Scientist, artists, public health researchers, and gender/sexuality experts converged on Manhattan Marymount College for three days of sharing.

On Thursday evening, Sarah represented Sustainable Cycles at the Poster Presentation session– Our display was a big map of the United States with Rachel’s route pinned out. I hung up samples of cloth pads, menstrual cups, and sea sponges, and brought in all the materials of our fresh-off-the-press Educator’s Packets! Most people there already knew and love re-useables, although cups were new to a few people, even at this conference! That evening I gave away three Educator’s Packets to 3 awesome new spokeswomen.

Nita Padavil, one of our newest spokeswomen, is a soon-to-be second year medical student at UChicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine, hoping to become an OB/GYN. She is especially interested in how the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle underpin a woman’s health and wellbeing throughout her lifespan. Her first Sustainable Cycles event was in July at the Englewood Community Health Fair, which took place in the Chicago neighborhood of Englewood which is predominantly African American and working class.

From Nita:

There were some serious rock stars at this conference!  We could not possibly list them all, but Alessandra Leri,  Chella Quint, and Chris Bobel illustrate the diversity of the group…

Conventional tampons and pads are bleached with chlorine, and contain some unknown concentration or organocloride chemicals (some in the form of dioxins).  We got to hear Alessandra Leri, a chemist at Manhattan Marymount College talk about her latest work attempting to measure the toxicity of tampons.  With strong results, this research could be part of an attempt to get bleach out of tampons!

Chella Quint is a comedy writer, performer, artist, activist, zine editor, and health educator who lives in the UK.  She did a comedy show during lunch on Saturday which included:

• A video of a girl walking around a mall with a huge period stain on her white jeans… plus everyones’ reactions.
• A pitch for her Stain (TM) product line – stylish red patches in the shape of a stain that you can stick on the back of your pants.
• And best of all, an educational song about the menstrual cycle, that she thinks would be ideal for Sesame Street.  We will have to ask her if we can share it here.  It’s seriously been stuck in my head for days.  She had the whole conference doing a sing-along.

Chris Bobel, a Women’s Studies professor at U Mass Boston, felt like the hostess of the event – she did a ton or work to organize, and was clearly in a state of bliss the entire time.   MORE

We met some menstruation education sisters!  M.A.R.C. (Menstration Activist Research Collective), was co-founded by two students at Arizona State University, Jaqueline J. Gonzalez and Stephanie Robinson.  They have their own version of an “educators packet,” and their own spin on a menstrual product workshop.  It was fascinating to attend their workshop on menstrual activism.

We have big crushes on two different organizations doing work with menstrual products in the developing world… and we got to meet representatives of both organizations at the conference!

• Zana Africa is a non-profit working with local people to create business out of biodegradable, affordable cloth pads for women and girls. By making affordable sanitary pads, delivering health education, and informing policy, Zana Africa creates new opportunities for women and girls to thrive as focused students, productive workers, and informed mothers.

“The Problem: 65% of women and girls in Kenya cannot afford pads. This means that over 850,000 girls miss 6 weeks of school every year and women miss valuable work hours. The problem is worse across East Africa with 4 in 5 unable to afford pads. Reusable pads and rags are the alternatives, but can be unhygienic, leading to long-term health complications. They also cause embarrassing leaks. Girls would rather stay home than risk such humiliation.

The Solution: produce the lowest-cost, most eco-responsible sanitary pad in the world and to provide large-scale, cascading impact to women and intermediary partners through distribution. By 2020 Zana Africa will directly support 3 million girls and women with their pads, to sustainably win back 5 million school days, 2 million work hours and $1 million to reinvest in their families. They will equip 23,000 saleswomen to earn an additional $100/year.”

• Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE): helps local women in developing countries jump-start their own businesses to manufacture and distribute affordable, quality, and eco-friendly sanitary pads.  SHE  uses local raw materials, instead of  imported materials, to ensure affordability and accessibility.  SHE will couple its product innovation with a financially sustainable business model operated and owned by women in the community that can be replicated wherever the need exists.  SHE will instigate the launch of a local business by
  • Partnering with existing local women’s networks;
  • Ensuring a microfinance loan for women who will share start-up costs;
  • Training local group in necessary business skills and health and hygiene.

Check out their promo video and join the SHE28Campaign!

*      *      *

To say that we were inspired by this conference would be an understatement. The collective power, vision, and intelligence of this group of people sent us off feeling a charged excitement about this work, but also with questions of how Sustainable Cycles can be most effective. We are happy to continue giving away Educator’s Packets and resources to new Spokeswomen as we meet them, but we’ve decided that, for now at least, we’d like to focus on making more bike trips happen. Our goal is to support at least one trip per year.

This year we will be inviting women to apply to take a Sustainable Cycles bicycle trip. As we did with Rachel, we will supply educational materials, mentorship, use of the blog, and keep up the relationships with the cup companies. We see these trips with (at least) a two-fold benefit: bicycle touring allows you to meet people, start conversations, and give away cups to a wide demographic of people that would be very hard to find otherwise; and, these trips are a tremendous learning experience for the people taking them.

It’s a cheap, adventurous, and meaningful way to travel. Great for folks finishing up college. If you or someone you know might be interested, contact us for more information!

Sarah Konner: sskonner@gmail.com

Toni Craige: tonicraige@gmail.com

Sustainable Cycles is off to an incredible start in 2013!  We were awarded the year-long Lead Now Fellowship; we are presenting at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference this June; and we are sending Spokeswomen on a trip from the Bay Area to New York City – 3,250 miles!  

Our 2013 trip will be led by Rachel Horn, a recent graduate of UC Berkeley (read more about Rachel in her bio on our “About” page). The trip begins April 28th in the Bay Area and will take about three months.  Passionate Spokeswomen are invited to come along for either the entire trip or a short leg.   Please email Rachel directly if you are interested in joining up!

rachihorn@gmail.com

Like our previous trip, menstrual cup companies are donating cups for us to give away.  Spokeswomen will write blog posts and articles, do interviews, give workshops, and make a ruckus to raise awareness about sustainable menstrual products.

Donate now to Rachel’s trip! Her total budget for the 3 month trip (including food, bike repair, sleeping arrangements, a train ticket back to California, everything) is $2,000.

We run on a tight (practically non-existent) budget and we are proud of it!  On our last bike trip we spent just $1,400, while giving away 200 menstrual cups.  Within a year of use the cups we gave away will save our giftees $9,600 (considering that most women spend $4/month on throw-away supplies).  Since the cups last 10 years, those cups will save our giftees $96,000 dollars!  

Think about it – with an investment of $1,400, Sustainable Cycles saved women $96,000 – that is $68 dollars of value for every $1 invested.  Of course it’s not just about money – those cups are also reducing waste, and benefiting women’s health.

It’s a great investment – donate to keep this incredible project going strong!

Sustainable Cycles, in partnership with girls’ empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation (FCF), has been selected as one of 6 projects to receive a $1,000 Fellowship though SustainUS, a youth environmentalist organization!  The Fellowships were awarded to 6 small-scale sustainable development projects all over the United States.  For the year 2013, Sustainable Cycles will partner with FCF campers Tyra Davis and Aniah Bland. They will receive mentoring and support for their project, and get to know the other fellows though conference calls and in-person meetings.

We will be working on creating educator’s packets, and organizing a cross country bike trip to come (more on that later). We’d also like to begin writing posts about some of the international public health work going on regarding access to affordable, sustainable menstrual products.  In Raleigh, Toni, Aniah, and Tyra are developing a line of reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a microventure to support FCF.  So far, SC has focused on menstrual cups – we are excited to branch out.  The awesome thing about pads is that we (or anyone!) can make them ourselves without any fancy equipment, and have a low-cost, sustainable product.

Until now, all Sustainable Cycles’ funds have come from grassroots fundraising and small donations, or out of Sarah and Toni’s pockets. We can’t wait to step up our game in 2013!

Here’s some more information about the project. Please let us know if you want to know more, get involved, or if you have any ideas for us:

Tyra Davis sewing cloth pads at FCF’s office in Raleigh, North Carolina

Project Description:

Campers from Full Circles Foundation (represented by Tyra Davis, Aniah Bland, and Toni Craige), will partner with Sustainable Cycles (represented by Sarah Konner and Toni Craige). The FCF girls will learn to make reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a fundraiser for FCF, and they will create “educators’ packets” on the what, why and how of sustainable menstrual products. Sustainable Cycles will distribute the packets to community educators all over the country. Sustainable Cycles is also planning and promoting an upcoming cross-country bicycle tour to raise awareness.

Why?:

Conventional products are expensive and wasteful: The average woman in the US will spend about $2000 over her lifetime on single-use, disposable menstrual products. Conventional disposable products are made of trees, bleach, cotton, and glue (none of which are great things to put inside your body). After one use they are thrown away. The average woman throws away a huge truckload of menstrual products over her lifetime.

Very few people know about the alternatives: A very small proportion of US women use sustainable alternatives (menstrual cups, sea sponges, reusable cloth pads). It is not lucrative business to sell these products (they are inexpensive, and you do not need to replace them often). Our culture of silence about women’s bodies and menstruation stops people from even talking about the issue.

There is limited access to sustainable products in communities that most need them: Menstrual products are a significant financial burden on low-income women. They often do not have access to information about alternatives, or the up-front cost of the alternatives is prohibitive.

How we are addressing the challenge:

Making an alternative: We are making a sustainable product by hand, on a small scale, which will replace tons of trash produced by multinational corporations.

Income source for FCF girls and programming: This project could eventually provide fair and empowering employment for FCF girls.  FCF has a long-term vision of having youth-owned cooperative businesses all over the Southeastern United States.

Sparking a grassroots movement, reaching out to new communities, empowering community educators: We hope that the hands-on experience of making the pads and educator’s packets will get FCF girls fired-up about these issues. FCF works primarily with low-income women of color – a community which does not tend to have a lot of access to sustainable products. The girls will have the tools and enthusiasm needed to spark a grassroots change in their communities. Sustainable Cycles will reach out to our large national network of supporters to put the educator’s packets in action all over the country.

Hey everyone, remember us?  Since our big bike trip, Sustainable Cycles has been more on the back burner, but there is still some great news to report.  We have been awarding prizes for the handsome young man contest, following up with giftees from our bike trip, presenting at conferences, and more.

*   *   *

All along, the Handsome Young Man Project, (“The Handsome Young Man Project: Sarah and Toni bicycle down the West Coast, live on $4 a day, and Talk to Handsome Young Men About Sustainable Approaches to Menstruation”), has been one of the more absurd and fun parts of Sustainable Cycles.  We found that many men were curious about menstrual cups, and wanted to help with our efforts.  We decided to create a contest:

The handsome young man who convinces the most women to switch to a menstrual cup wins.  Brilliant – any man wants to fall into the category of handsome and young, and men love contests.   The promised prize?  An enormous menstrual cup shaped beer goblet!

See the original post here for details.  (Warning: this project should not be taken seriously).

After getting home from the trip, I set about finding the right potter for the job – classy, manly pottery for a good price.  Luckily, we are family friends with Mark Hewitt – fabulous potter with a good sense of humor.  He agreed to have his apprentice, Seth Guzovsky make us two goblets for $50.

Big pots like this are Mark’s signature– due to budget restrictions, we commissioned something more modest, but no less impressive…

Mark’s wood-fired kiln.

One of the goblets by Mark’s apprentice, Seth.

It was impossible to pick just one winner!  Each of our two winners got one of these goblets:

The text says: “This certifies that [name] has been deemed an exceptional advocate of sustainable menstrual products, and therefore of women’s health, a fair economy, and a healthy earth by Sustainable Cycles. In recognition for his sensitivity, boldness, good looks, youth, and virility, he is awarded this giant menstrual cup shaped beer goblet.

THE WINNERS:

Ben hosted us at his house in Olympia.  In high school (!!!) at an age when most boys blush at the mere mention of periods, Benjamin bought menstrual cups for two female friends.  Ben with his cup:

Ben with his cup.

Cole is an irrepressible menstrual cup enthusiast.  He convinced many women in his large community to make the switch, and is a true pioneer in his openness to talk about these issues.  He also got an article about sustainable menstrual products published in Street Roots, a newspaper focused on empowering Portland’s homeless community.

Cole with his cup.

*   *   *

Now onto less ridiculous matters…

After getting back from our trip, we sent out a survey to all 200 giftees asking for feedback about the cups, and finding out about their “spokeswomen” activities.  Whenever I need a little pick-me-up, I can always go look at their responses:

Stats from our survey:

*90% told a friend

*46% are interested in going on a SC bike trip

* 5 people (6% of respondents) have already given a small, informal workshop on cups! 60% may do so in the future

 Fun testimonials:

“Through my work as a social worker I have given out 3 of the 4 cups you gave to me. I am also talking about the cup with friends, peers and clients promoting both the environmental and cost benefits. Thank you for your hard work on this! It is a great project and your dedication rocks!” 

“I’m basically enamored. So much easier, so much cleaner than using anything else – I want to personally hug whoever invented these things. My housemate is making all the girls in our house personalized menstrual cup bags. We’re obsessed. I do a lot of talking about it with people whom I think might be interested in switching over – told a few people where to get them and about the learning curve. I’m thinking of getting my sister one for Christmas, but she’d probably think it was weird. Anyway thanks so much for filling us in about this. I couldn’t be happier.”

“I was really NOT interested in using Cups when I first heard about them. I was fine with using tampons and the whole process sounded gross to me. Then, I went with some of my JV housemates to the talk at In Other Words and I felt a little bit persuaded. When Toni gave the non-Cup using girls in our house cups, I felt like I should at least give it three cycles, which is was recommended by a housemate, and I was fully prepared to hate it and be done by December…I LOVE IT!! I can’t get over how much easier it is. It is so much cleaner, I feel better about not having those disgusting cotton toxic tampons in my body, and not creating all that paper waste. I talk about them to everyone who will listen and I am committed to getting my sister and best friend to start using Cups by the end of this year!”

“The women who came to my co-op house were incredibly enthusiastic and helpful. My friends and I learned a lot from them, and continue to benefit from their communication and support. The Sustainable Cycles workshop generated a meaningful and lasting conversation in our community about the issues of womens’ bodies and health.”

*   *   *

I had the great opportunity to attend two day-long conferences put on by Law Students for Reproductive Justice.  The first was the southern regional meeting at UNC Chapel Hill, which I attended as a guest, and the second was the mid-Atlantic conference at American University in Washington DC, where I spoke on a panel about reproduction and sexuality education.

Reproductive justice is huge in the news right now (Susan G. Komen/ Planned Parenthood, Catholics and birth control, the Right to Know Act, etc).  I never would have even heard about the conference if the organizer, Nikola, had not posted a comment on our blog and asked to get in touch. Then– and it almost feels like a joke– she asked me to be on a panel!  It was wonderful to hear such accomplished professionals talk about their work in Reproductive Justice, and it was a great honor to be alongside two advocates for comprehensive sex ed in DC.

Watching Sarah Audelo of Advocates for Youth give her presentation.

* * *

I have been working with a girls empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation, which works to build strong girls, a fair economy, and a healthy earth.  Sounds a lot like the mission of Sustainable Cycles…

FCF’s main program is a summer camp called “Strong Camp” for low-income girls ages 7-15.  I did a workshop for the girls 12 and up– the youngest group I have ever given a Sustainable Cycles presentation to.  More so than older women, younger girls tend to be “grossed out” by this topic, and less inclined to “poke around” and get to know themselves in the way they would need to to use a menstrual cup.  I was able to give away 5 cups to some wonderful girls.  Several felt that they were not “ready” now, but may be in the future, and a few others wanted to try out cloth pads.

What struck me most was how important frank, accurate conversations about the body are to teens.  So much is learned through whispers and euphamisms, oversexed by the media, or silenced by shame.  Everyone was paying very close attention!

*  *  *

We have updated the other pages of the blog – check it out, and forward this along to friends who might be interested. Please be in touch with questions, and comments.

More news coming soon…

Hi everyone,

We really, really, REALLY want to be on the Ellen Degeneres show.

Here’s the fantasy:  we camp in Ellen and Portia’s backyard in LA.  They make us vegan breakfast, then we ride bikes together to the studio where they film the show.  After Ellen tells her enormous audience a bit about our project, we ride our fully-loaded touring bikes on stage and tell the world about menstrual cups, thus multiplying the effectiveness of our trip 100 times.

Help us!  1)  Write Ellen an email telling her why we should be on her show.

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/show/respond/?PlugID=10

2)  Post a comment on her Facebook page (Ellen Degeneres, “public figure”).

Write about:

• Menstrual cups and how great they are.
  • You love them.
  • They save you money.
  • They are great for the environment.
  • They are healthy (no TSS, no dioxins, no bleaches).
  • How you met us.  Did we give you a cup?  Camp in your yard?  Get a ride in your pickup truck.
• Explain why the women of the world need to know about this!
• •  Are you glad we told you?
  • Who have you told?

Please take 15 minutes to write to Ellen—this could really have a huge impact.  Every woman who switches to reusables saves 1,000-2,000 dollars and a huge amount of trash.  Ellen’s audience is enormous!

Thanks a lot!

It has been harder than anticipated to find a place to write this post.  We ran out of time in Portland, and tried to write to you from a bathroom at Cape Lookout State Park on the Oregon Coast using Sarah’s I-phone as a modem. So romantic–sitting on the bathroom floor with a tiny computer and an I-phone,  and telling curious camp bathroom users about reusable menstrual products.  Alas, no service.

We regret that we lost track of the cord that connects Toni’s camera to the computer, so we have a chunk of time that we can’t share visually with you, but we do have some recent photos from Sarah’s camera. Other things we’ve lost: two water bottles, one pair of bicycles gloves, our mini bottles of hot sauce, vinegar, and olive oil (food’s pretty bland now), two spoons, and one tupperware. We need to shape up.

Sarah feeding Toni blackberries

Peanut butter-cabbage tacos for dinner. We’re eatin’ well dad.

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Last night was the new moon (taditionally a time to let things go and start anew). For reasons not worth explaining Toni and I ended up at the top of a two and a half mile downhill, just as the darkness was descending. Quickly realizing that we could not possibly ride our fully loaded bikes down a steep, pitch black winding road, we started a slow and humbling, new-moon-rebirthing kind of walk through the deeply dark night to the state park where we spent the night. We planned to pop open a bottle of cheap wine when we got to camp to wind down, but by the time we set up our tent and realized we had no bottle opener, we decided to just go to bed. We massaged each others arms (sore from slowing the momentum of our heavy bicycles as we walked), and concked out. Why have a full moon night on the new moon? This morning we re-organized all of our stuff, and are feeling excited about the next phase of our trip.

Since Portland, Toni andI  have been on the very rural Oregon coast.  There is not much to report in terms of events, but we have been in doing some great biking in beautiful country, and have given away 4 cups.

Today, we finally got to highway 101: our road for our time in Oregon.  After ab0ut an hour of harrowing riding alongside logging  trucks, we needed to calm our nerves, and smoke a metaphorical ciggarette.  We are sitting in a little bar in Hebo, Oregon (country music videos, farm hands, motorcyclists, etc) using Wi-Fi and sneaking bites of leftover grits and butter beans so the bartender won’t notice.

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This is what we planned to post just after we left Portland…

Wednesday August 24th

Sarah and I are spending the day in the living room of one of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps communities in Portland.  They are all away for the day, working in different social services and advocacy organizations around Portland. It’s great to finally have some down-time to work at the computer and have a rest from bicycling!

We left Olympia on Sunday morning and arrived in Portland on Tuesday around 2pm.  The first day, we were on a lovely bike path for a few hours.  We got to tell a few other bikers about our project, and got two spontaneous $5 donations.  One woman is a teacher, and promised to make copies of our fliers to give out to her friends at a party she is attending this weekend.

Sunday evening, as dusk was approaching and we were beginning to look for a place to camp, we happened upon a whole field of tents… and bicycles!  Turns out we had run into the crew from Ride Across Washington (RAW), a 6-day “supported tour” (meaning  trucks carry your stuff and other people cook for you) all over the state.   They were great hosts, letting us “camp in their yard” and giving us dinner and breakfast.

Monday we got started biking at 7:30am, hoping to make it to Portland (almost 100 miles that day).  We tried our best, but ended up camping in Columbia City, a tiny town 30 miles north of Portland.  We stayed in the back yard of an elderly couple, Jenny and JD.  Jenny told us that she had always wanted to do something like our trip, but that “girls didn’t do things like that back then.”  One kid she knew had gone on a 200mile bike trip, and another had roller-bladed to the next town.  Jenny offered us the use of their bathroom (extensively decorated with ducks), and told us to help ourselves to the kale growing in the garden.

We are so excited to be in Portland, and dig into the sustainable menstruation part of our project.

Yesterday evening, we had a great event at In Other Words, a feminist community space, library, and bookstore.  About 20 people showed up, only three of which already used cups.  We did a lot of nuts and bolts education on the why and how of using a cup.  A few bought Mooncups right then and there from the store, we gave a few cups away, and many people left interested in buying themselves a cup later.

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Since we have recived so much kindness from Toni’s Jesuit Volunteer (JV) network, a little more about them:

Jesuit Volunteers live in community on a very modest shared budget, with just $80 of personal spending money a month (some of which goes towards buying pads and tampons).  For a JV, and many other low-income people, $35 dollars in one chunk is hard to part with.  We decided to give cups to half the JVs in each house we visit, and have them split the price of buying the cups for the other half.  That way, everyone gets a cup for half price—the cups are made accessible, but there is also some sense of responsibility and sacrifice to own one.  When we came here yesterday, one women in the house had a cup—now all five have cups.  Its’s really exciting to know that their community will be producing zero waste from menstrual products!

We hope that there will be a big ripple effect from each cup we give away.  In the case of the JVs, the cups go to idealistic passionate people who have access to underserved communities.  Many JVs go on to become leaders in social services and advocacy organizations.  They can be part of the project of bringing sustainable, affordable, healthy, and empowering menstrual products to underserved women.

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We have been distributing copies of an amazing zine, “Menstruation Sensation,” written by Alyssa Beers (www.alyssabeers.com) of Gladrags. When we got in touch with the company about copying the zine as educational material, Tracy Puhl, the now-owner Gladrags, invited us to their office in Portland to meet her, see their space, and talk about what we are doing. Gladrags is a Portland based company started by one woman sewing cl0th reuseable pads and selling them to her friends. The rags became very popular, and now Gladrags are sold all over the country. In addition to cloth pads, Gladrags also stocks and sells sea sponges, and menstrual cups from all three companies.

Tracy was enthusiastic about our trip. She gave us Gladrags to add to our stock of gifts to give away, educated us about reuseable pads, and gave us two great books about menstruation and the health risks associated with pads and tampons. Gladrags is a great connection for our project.  In addition to making their own products, Gladrags promotes and sells all sustainable menstrual options. Gladrags often offers wholesale prices on bulk orders to non-profits and social service agencies. We will make sure to tell caseworkers and organizations we meet along our way.

In order to help us track some part of our impact on menstrual cup sales, Tracy offered to create a coupon code for sales on the Gladrags website, “sustainablecycles.” Anyone can use that code to order any product from Gladrags to get a 15% discount (and all cups ship free!).

We think what Tracy is doing is awesome, and we hope she will come ride bikes with us for a weekend somewhere on the coast.

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For those of you who don’t know already, Toni and I have two grandiose/whimsical goals for this trip. 1) Get Portlandia to make an episode about us, and 2) be on the Ellen Degeneres show.

Portlandia…

 When Toni was being interviewed for the Willamette Weekly article (see “press” sidebar), the reporter commented that our whole trip sounds like a Portlandia skit.  For those of you who don’t know, Portlandia is a TV show that makes fun of the idealistic culture of Portland 20-somethings.  At first we were a bit offended, then we realized that people making fun of us is a great way to get the word out about reusuable menstrual products.  Any press is good press, so they say.

We have sensitive ears, and were able to find a film shoot for the TV show while we were in Portland!   We pulled aside a filming assistant, Tucker, and told him about our project.  Tucker learned  all about menstrual cups, our project, and why we would make a perfect Portlandia skit.  We gave Tucker a menstrual cup and got him to promise to get the cup to the director’s wife.  We stressed his responsibility to make sure that she uses the cup. 

Who knows what will come of it– Tucker!  If you are reading this…. don’t let us down!

Our Ellen fantasy…

We camp in Ellen and Portia’s backyard.  They make us homemade vegan breakfast in the morning, then ride bikes with us to the studio.  After Ellen announces our project, we ride our fully loaded bikes on the stage and tell Ellen’s huge audience about sustainable menstruation – multiplying the effectiveness of our trip 100 times, at least.

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Let us know if you have any connections with Portlandia or Ellen DeGeneres.  Stay tuned to be part of a mass lobbying effort directed at Ellen – if we get 30 people to write to her, maybe she will notice!

Remember, if you are interested in buying a menstrual cup for yourself or a friend, you can get 15% off and free shipping by using the promotional code “sustainablecycles” at gladrags.com