Wausau Students Launch the “Period Project”

Tuesday, March 18th, 2025 -- 8:00 AM

(Brianna Weaver, WSAW) Middle school can be rough. From the awkwardness of socializing to puberty, it can be hard for students. It’s especially hard when you don’t have the resources you need, according to Brianna Weaver with WSAW.

According to a study commissioned by PERIOD and Thinx, 25% of teens report missing schoolwork because of a lack of access to menstrual products. A group of Wausau students have started a county-wide initiative to change that.

“I have an after-school group and we were just talking about our daily life and one of the students talked about getting their period in school that day and how embarrassing it was,” said 6th grade health teacher at Wausau School District, Patty Zemke. “Then we got to talking about, well, do we even have supplies in the bathroom? And they didn’t know.”

Zemke says those students didn’t have quarters for the dispensers in the bathroom. After giving them some quarters and finding dispensers with products in them, they found something very off-putting about the supplies. “They brought back some pads and tampons that were very old. 1998 and 2004,” said Zemke.

She was amazed by those dates. “I couldn’t believe that. I mean it shows how much no one’s even thought about this issue for how many years and then grateful that we were actually talking about it and thinking about what we could do to fix it,” said Zemke.

After that, a survey showed students felt uncomfortable getting their period at school. That catapulted the “Period Project”. An initiative that provides free tampons and pads in school bathrooms.

“The school paid for it the first year to have the supplies, and then it went so well that we wrote a grant to the Medical College of Wisconsin, to the BA Esther [Greenheck] Foundation, and they gave us a $10,000 grant renewable. For every school in Marathon County,” said Zemke. Supplies are slowly being distributed into the schools, but it’s already making an impact.

“I think it’s really cool that they like supply it for us in the bathrooms because we don’t have to worry about, like if we forget stuff or like if we don’t have anything, it’s just there so we can use it,” said 6th grade student Adysen Loiz.

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