{"id":151350,"date":"2025-08-16T20:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/151350\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T20:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:20:13","slug":"philadelphias-grab-n-flow-fights-for-menstrual-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/151350\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia\u2019s Grab n\u2019 Flow fights for menstrual equity"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Shelley Aragoncillo gave birth to her child in March 2020, just as COVID-19 swept the world and Philadelphia commenced a monthslong shut down.\n<\/p>\n

The hospital where she delivered her baby stocked her up with postpartum products, and Aragoncillo realized she had an \u201cexcess\u201d of the birth recovery supplies. At the same time, she also noticed a demand for menstrual products as many people were financially struggling during the public health emergency.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were so many people online asking for pads and tampons and things like that,\u201d Aragoncillo said. \u201cSo I just thought, if I can start a small shed and run it for as long as I can with my own funds, I\u2019ll just use that as kind of an access point.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Inspired by the community fridges and other mutual aid efforts springing up at the time, and informed by her decade-plus experience working in reproductive justice, Aragoncillo set up a shed in her neighborhood in South Philly. She began stocking it with postpartum products, pads, tampons and other menstrual supplies, and invited neighbors to contribute.\n<\/p>\n

The community response, Aragoncillo said, was \u201cincredible.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea people were so excited to speak about menstrual equity and postpartum care and things like that,\u201d she said.
\n\"AAragoncillo stocks products at the original Grab n\u2019 Flow shed in South Philadelphia. She says pads are among the most popular products at all three locations. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

The original community shed at South Franklin and Tasker streets is still the flagship for Grab n\u2019 Flow<\/a>, which now stocks two other locations at the Lucien E. Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional Library and the Walnut Street West Library. In addition to partnering with The Free Library of Philadelphia, Grab n\u2019 Flow has also been supported by the city of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine.\n<\/p>\n

Aragoncillo plans to use an ongoing fundraiser<\/a> for Grab n\u2019 Flow to expand its locations.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to try to get more community members involved, to maybe host sheds outside of their homes,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so the GoFundMe is to cover storage unit fees, because while we do get product donations, the monetary donations definitely help to cover the kind of administrative stuff.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Pads fly off the shelves<\/p>\n

The flagship South Philly shed still receives dozens of visits each day from people picking up supplies, as well as other community members donating menstrual and postpartum products.\n<\/p>\n

That location is meant to serve the area\u2019s majority-immigrant community. Information posted on the inside of the shed doors is written in both English and Spanish, and Aragoncillo plans to soon provide translations into other languages, including Cambodian and Mandarin.\n<\/p>\n

Pads go the fastest, and are more popular than tampons, Aragoncillo said. The rate of use shows just how in demand menstrual supplies are.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane how much these products cost people,\u201d Aragoncillo said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":151351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,83271,1448,2830,1311,11590,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,15649],"class_list":{"0":"post-151350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-manayunk","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-south-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-womens-health"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115040303660047031","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}