Some students from Lone Star High School in Frisco are collecting donations for women in need and raising awareness about those needs in the process.
"People just don't want to bring it up," Julianna Poulson said. "Of course, it comes from the patriarchy. It is a sexist structure that you're not allowed to talk about women's bodies."
Poulson and some of her friends have been collecting donations of women's undergarments and feminine products to give to women in need. They got the idea from a TikTok video posted by 'HER Drive,' a nonprofit that helps people set up women-centered donation drives.
Poulson said they set up donation boxes in public spaces like malls and public libraries in Frisco. Many of the donations collected went to Genesis Women's Shelter in Dallas.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
"For women in these positions, it's like they have to make a choice a lot of the time between food or tampons," Poulson said. "Like, you have to choose between necessities."
The students have collected more than 3,000 items so far.
"Hopefully help people in the process to kind of open up a dialogue around it," Poulson said. "As a woman, it's just something that occurs in your life, not something that you can avoid just because you don't want to talk about it."
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Over the summer, the students from Frisco also collected back-to-school backpack donations.
"It's really nice to see the community, like, put in their own time, effort, and money into supporting other people," Poulson said.
