When COVID-19 hit Philadelphia, residents lost jobs, income, and educational progress. One of the less recognized downstream effects, however, was an increase in “period poverty” — a lack of access to menstrual hygiene products.

“It’s an issue that wasn’t being discussed or met within our community,” Lynette Medley said.

So Medley and her daughter, Nya McGlone, started bringing menstrual products to women in their Germantown community.

“It got to the point where we were doing 85 deliveries a week to 380 plus. And so we knew we had to create something more substantial for our community,” Medley said.

In the midst of the pandemic, the mother-daughter duo founded “The SPOT Period,” the nation’s first menstrual product hub and uterine wellness center in Germantown. Today, the SPOT has grown into a distribution, education, and wellness center, and this month marks its five-year anniversary.

To Medley and McGlone, period poverty was personal. They had lived it themselves. “The reason we wanted to do this work has come through a lens of people who’ve experienced this,” Medley said.

The experience can have devastating impacts. Not having menstrual products can prevent women from attending school or work. It also can force women to use unsafe alternatives that can cause serious health problems such as toxic shock syndrome, a bacterial infection that can occur with prolonged tampon use.

“People don’t look at menstrual health and uterine health as something as dire as it is,” Medley said. “We have 7- to 8-year-old girls coming in here, not being able to function, not being able to go to school. They didn’t choose this. This is just something normal that people with a uterus have, and we need to support them in the best way possible.”

Since the SPOT’s founding in February 2021, Medley, McGlone, and community volunteers have expanded their menstrual product distribution services beyond Germantown, opening satellite locations on HBCU campuses in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. They have also launched “The SPOT on the Go,” a mobile menstrual health clinic that brings menstrual products and educational programming to churches, schools, and other locations across the city. They now distribute around 63,000 products per week — more than three million per year.

This expansion has allowed them to stay connected to community members who leave the neighborhood. Medley recalls a community member who once came to the SPOT seeking period products after missing days of high school because she couldn’t afford them. With Medley’s help, she accessed the support and products she needed to stay in school.

“Imagine the path she would have taken if she were not able to go to school, not able to go forward,” Medley said. “But now she’s an honors student in college. She has a full-paid scholarship.”

Experiences like these, what Medley describes as “little wins,” are the most important and meaningful parts of the organization.

As the organization looks ahead, sustainability remains its biggest challenge. The most important goal for the next five years is to “stay open and get enough sponsorship and funding,” Medley said.

While its growth has been steady, the SPOT relies entirely on donations and community contributions. And for an organization focused on women’s issues, garnering enough support can be challenging.

“Unfortunately, due to the attack on women’s health as a whole, we’ve been impacted, like every other women’s organization,” Medley said.

To that end, the SPOT is marking its five-year anniversary with a fundraiser at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia on Feb. 20. Tickets and donation opportunities are available on their website.

The five-year anniversary is not just a celebration, but a push forward. The SPOT will continue education and service efforts, with Medley and McGlone at the forefront.

“If I can light the flame of a flicker to someone else,” Medley said, “maybe they can continue lighting it and spreading the word.”