This past week, I visited my local District Market on campus to buy some urgently needed period products for my time of the month. To my dismay, the District Market did not seem to carry even a single feminine hygiene product. Now, it’s possible that they were out of stock when I was there, or I just looked in the wrong place, but I think that’s highly unlikely considering I scoured the shelves by walking past them an embarrassing number of times. How can the one supermarket on campus, that carries an ungodly amount of pain killers and different types of condoms, not have a single tampon or pad? Now that’s embarrassing.
So, if you are an individual who menstruates and you find yourself in emergency need of period products on campus, I am here to help you out. Read on to find a non-comprehensive list of places on campus you can go to get what you need.
Thankfully, the UW’s Building Services Department has a free menstrual product program in place at a lot of building bathrooms around campus, so you don’t have to pay or even be a UW student to get menstrual products.
Since you’re most likely a student, you can probably found spending most of your time in the libraries. Lucky for you, almost all libraries on campus offer free menstrual products in their bathrooms. This includes the Allen Library’s bathroom G086J, Suzallo’s bathroom 117A, and Odegaard’s bathrooms 140 and 212.
No matter what major you are, there are also probably period products to be found in your classroom buildings. For example, students can find them in bathrooms G23, 104, 105, and 115 of the Bill and Melinda Gates Center, bathroom 001A of the Paul Allen center, bathrooms 11-A and 107 of the art building, bathroom 112 in the life science building, and bathrooms 182, 282, and 382 in Paccar.
And of course, the newer buildings on campus have a ton of free period products, notably in their great all-gender bathrooms. The newest building on campus, the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health, has the most bathrooms with menstrual products, all of which are in ADA accessible and all-gender bathrooms. The following bathrooms in the population health building have these products: G136, G132, 185, 327, 369C, 369D, 427, 469C, 469D, 527, 569C, 569D, 627, 669C, 669D, 727, 769C, 769D, 827, 869C, 869D.
Lastly, the UW Food Pantry even has its own supply of menstrual products for its customers. Not only are they kind enough to spend their time handing out food for those that need it, they also recognize that period products are a necessity and should be a given for anyone who needs them.
So, I hope this list is helpful when you’re in need of a feminine hygiene product (it might be a good idea to write some of these down or bookmark this page for future reference). While it’s sad that something as simple and necessary as menstrual products can’t be found at the District Market, the effort that the Building Services Department has made to provide free products is commendable, especially in newer buildings. Let’s just hope that they continue this trend and provide students with even more free menstrual resources; it really should be a given.
Find many more bathrooms with menstrual products here: https://facilities.uw.edu/catalog/free-menstrual-product-program