Why Free Period Products Can Sit Behind an Empty Dispenser

Ontario renewed its Menstrual Equity Initiative in 2024 with a donation of 23 million products and 1,380 new dispensers for school washrooms. The instructive part is what happens after installation: as the researchers behind The Conversation Canada piece put it, free products in schools reach students only when someone keeps the dispensers filled. Funding a supply and delivering an experience are two different problems, and the second one has a much duller failure mode — a stocked warehouse, an empty dispenser in a washroom down the hall.