Get FREE Menstrual Cups for Your University: Your Guide to the CampusCup Program
I led a distribution of nearly 1000 free menstrual cups on Penn State’s campus. Let me tell you how we made CampusCup a smashing success!
Image courtesy of AllMatters
Throughout my time working in the menstrual equity space at Penn State, one of my absolute favorite projects was leading the CampusCup program. I even wrote my thesis about it!
CampusCup is a 100% free initiative sponsored by personal care company AllMatters to help you connect students on your campus with sustainable period care options. For complete details on the logistics of the program (and to sign up!), check out the AllMatters website.
In this post, I won’t touch too much on the logistics, especially since it may change over time. What I want to share with you is the strategies our club at Penn State used to reach as many students as possible with free menstrual cups! You can learn a little more about our success through features on the Days for Girls Podcast and in our university newspaper, The Daily Collegian.
How CampusCup Works in a Nutshell
- Sign up for CampusCup on the AllMatters website (a university may only participate once)
- AllMatters provides a sign-up form to recruit students
- You choose a two week window to sign students up for the free menstrual cups
- AllMatters will provide you with a sign-up form to recruit students
- You get the number of cups that students signed up for
- You distribute the cups
- Done!
Tips for Launching CampusCup
Allow yourself enough time after student sign-ups for the cups to be shipped to you and for you to distribute them. Expect shipping to take up to a week from the end of the sign-up period, and give yourself another week to arrange the cups and communicate distribution information.
Use the CampusCup toolkit to help you create graphics for social media. I recommend making your own- you know the branding your audience will respond to, and you can also include the images provided by AllMatters. Make sure to use inclusive language so that all menstruating students on your campus feel welcome to sign up!
Our club made it a priority to do outreach about CampusCup, and it paid off! We set up a spreadsheet with a list of student organizations and offices that could be interested in the program- groups like the Society of Women Engineers, the student food pantry, the Gender Equity Center, etc. Our Executive Board divided & conquered the list via email and Instagram asking the orgs to share our flyers. We worked from templates and sent our graphics, and we always made sure to include why we thought that org would be interested.
Holding a Successful Distribution Day
Open your boxes of cups BEFORE distribution day! AllMatters offers a few sizes of menstrual cups, and your students will sign up for their preferred size. You’ll want to know which box has which size so you can stay organized.
When it comes time for distribution, book a table or space with a lot of foot traffic. Consider having multiple pickup dates to accommodate as many students as possible. Be prepared with your team to set-up individual pickups for students who can’t make your dates.
Your #1 responsibility on distribution day is making students feel comfortable! Be ready to be that person who says, “Are you here for your menstrual cup?” Be mindful that not all of your recipients will be feminine-presenting, and be thoughtful about the language that you choose. Some students may be shy and won’t say much, but it’s up to you to offer information and help them get excited about their cup. Make sure they know how to reach out to you afterwards if they have questions about their cup.
Speaking of questions- your students will have a lot! Take the opportunity to make a fun social media campaign to introduce menstrual cup care & usage and answer common questions. We tied a giveaway into our informational video to encourage students to share it around- check it out here!
Thoroughly research your information before publishing it online. Here are some of the menstrual cup questions we got most frequently from our students:
- How do I boil it in a dorm?
- How do I discretely empty/wash it in a communal bathroom?
- Can I sleep with it in?
- How do I insert/remove it?
- Can it get lost inside me?
- How do I know when it’s full?
- Should I be worried about toxic shock syndrome?
- Will I feel it inside me?
- What soap should I use to clean it?
Ask for feedback! Follow-up with your students about their experience. You’ll learn so much about how your community feels about menstrual cups, and it may help shape your future work.
At the end of your distribution day, you will inevitably have cups leftover from no-show pickups and double orders. Have a plan in mind for those cups, whether it be for a smaller distribution on your campus later, or a donation to a local nonprofit or shelter. We chose to donate our leftover cups to No More Secrets in Philadelphia.
If I Could Do It All Again, Here’s What I Would Do Differently.
While our CampusCup program was so much fun and a huge success, there were definitely some things I would do differently if I knew then what I know now.
First things first, we did our CampusCup signups right at the beginning of the school year. While this ensured we had plenty of time to distribute the cups after sign-ups, our marketing might have gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of club recruiting and early-semester chaos.
Secondly, I mentioned above to make sure students signing up for CampusCup understand there could be up to 3 weeks from their initial sign-up until they receive their cup. I can’t begin to tell you how many emails I fielded from students asking where their cup was! Make sure you communicate clearly in your marketing that you will reach out to them when it’s time to get the cup.
You will almost certainly have no-shows and quite a few extra cups. There will be some people who you just can’t seem to get in touch with. That’s okay! Do your best to reach them, but use your best judgment and be willing to let it go when needed.
Take pictures! I tried to take a picture at every CampusCup event, but especially since Penn State held ours while remote learning was still the norm, I always wish I had more. Take more than you think you’ll need- you’re going to want to share them!
Lean on your team! It would be crazy for one person to try and do everything I outlined here. Get volunteers to help with the distribution days, the outreach, the photos, and even the cup unboxing.
So there you have it! I hope this blog gets you excited about CampusCup and helps you plan to make it successful on your campus. Feel free to reach out to me for any questions or guidance on how to have bring sustainable period products to your campus.
P.S. If you are involved with a Days for Girls club, you can read a formal guide to CampusCup that I wrote for those groups specifically in the Club Leadership Room.
