Digital Media Convergence Vol. 1 Issue 1 | Page 4

donations from yoga studios, coffee shops, churches, schools. My two young boys were coming home with backpacks full of bras and there was nothing taboo about it. This is a grassroots movement that has blossomed into large collections from dozens of companies and organizations. When the Washington Post story hit, my inbox flooded ridiculously. I was surprised by its reach and I couldn’t keep up with the emails, the phone calls, the Facebook private messages - it was so overwhelming. Everyone had the same dozen questions to ask me. So one morning I got up at 4 am before I was supposed to be flying out to Boston, I sat down, bought a domain and created isupportthegirl. org. Then, I woke up my husband and told him that I need him to create me a website. I told him, “I’m giving you the instructions. I need you to include everything and I need it before I land in Boston. I need this done urgently.” With a website, I was able to copy and paste responses to my most asked questions. But I didn’t because this movement had grown legs. Instead of turning my back, I could solve the problem in a collaborative way. I pulled in friends in Communications and Public Relations, in Strategy and Operations and we developed an infrastructure. I worked hard on collaborating to develop a backbone that could support affiliate programs all over the country. I thought, what if I empower other women and girls to do this in their local communities, to collect and donate these products? We have requests from all over the world, from Canada and Mexico and Thailand. At this point, we have collected over 32,000 bras and over 135,000 menstrual products. “There are all of these little fortuitive moments in life and this was one of them. I realized that HF: How do you think other people can help start this conversation in their own communities? DM: I think anyone who understands the topic and is willing to talk, that they can help with the stigma. We are talking about dignity and coverage, not sexy lingerie. I think we need to find a way to get the tampon tax revoked and to get products into the hands of people who need them. This is part of a much bigger discourse on human rights and women’s dignity and it’s happening right now. I don’t know what I don’t know.” SD: Tell us a little bit about the conversation and the movement towards menstrual equity that Support The Girls has sparked. DM: After receiving responses from thousands of people who wanted to contribute, I realized I had hit a nerve. This was something very tangible, every women understood it immediately. I didn’t have to explain or prove anything. There was a very instant connection and people wanted to help. The more folks that got on board, the more it snowballed in this organic, beautiful way. This moment became a movement without me. I was the catalyst. It got to the point where I could have turned away and said “I’m done.” I’m very normal and unassuming, there’s nothing particularly special about me. Finding a way to execute this undertaking and work fulltime could have become my excuse to stop. But “I’m busy” is not an excuse to me anymore. I could have been done back in July. I could have pulled the plug, but more and more and more people ask me to talk. As long as people want to talk about it, there exists a way to break down the barriers