The Red Box Project Lymington & Brockenhurst

After reading about the number of girls in the UK who miss school because they find it difficult financially to purchase sanitary products, we decided to do something about it.

At the beginning of March this year, we became coordinators for the Red Box Project and have set up The Red Box Project Lymington & Brockenhurst.  The Red Box Project started just over a year ago in Portsmouth as a charitable community group and now has approximately 120 projects all over the UK.

Our aim is to put Red Boxes of sanitary items, spare knickers etc in local schools so that girls experiencing ‘period poverty' can access them and take what they need to support them throughout their entire period.

‘Period poverty’ happens more often than you realise and can result in tearful panics in the toilet, wadded up toilet roll, anxious embarrassment, missed lessons, missed education. Because of this, some girls are even failing to attend school during this time.  A recent article in the Independent stated the 137,700 girls in the UK missed school last because they could not afford to buy sanitary products. 

Most schools do a great job of helping girls when they have their periods.  We step up as a community to give school the peace of mind that stocks will never run out and enable you to support disadvantaged young women throughout their entire period. We also provide pants and tights.

To enables us to help these girls, we are building a community of supporters who agree to donate sanitary items regularly.  As well as initially having enough donations to place Red Boxes of sanitary items in schools, we need to make sure that we have enough donations to keep the boxes topped up.  If a girl relies on a box, it is vital that so there are always enough products in the box to support her throughout her entire period.

Can you help us by being one of our community supporters?  We ask our supporters to donate an item from the list below once a month (or when they can).

The items we require are:

Sanitary Pads – especially those suitable for teens

Tampons

Panty Liners (individually wrapped)

New Black pants age 9-13 and size 6-20

New Black Tights S/M/L/XL 60 Denier

Intimate Wipes

Small Roll-on Deodorants

Hand Made Drawstring Bags 10x10cm and 20x20cm

We are also looking for any groups or businesses that can support us with publicity or collecting items for us.

We have set up a Crowdfunding Page as there are times when we need to top up our boxes with certain items (usually pants and tights) or to buy the red boxes to put in schools.  Our Crowdfunding Page can be found at:

www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/redboxprojectlymingtonbrockenhurst

At the time of writing, we have drop-off points for donations at the following:

Tesco Brockenhurst

Brockenhurst Village Hall – ladies toilets

Sainsburys Brockenhurst

Day Lewis Pharmacy, Brockenhurst

Hairsway, Sway

Everton Post Office & Stores

Budgens Lyndhurst – near Customer Service desk, rear of store

Lyndhurst Baptist Church
Foxlease TAC, Lyndhurst
Tesco Pennington
Invest Health & Beauty, Fox Ponds Pennington
McColl's Milford Road, Pennington

Tesco Metro Lymington – rear of shop

Poundland Lymington – by tills
New Forest District Council Office, Lymington
Lymington Library
Co-op Petrol & Food, Ampress Park, Lymington

Handmade New Forest, New Milton
New Forest District Council Office, New Milton
Tesco Express, Old Milton Rd, New Milton
Day Lewis Pharmacy, New Milton

Co-op, Hordle

Hollands Grocers, Milford on Sea
Pilley Community Shop

So this is why we are asking for your help and would really appreciate any donations you can give to this project. Please tell your friends.

Why? Because we believe that a young women‘s education shapes her future and her dignity is our responsibility.

If you can help us in any way or if you would like more information, please contact us via the comments section at the bottom of this page.

We are also on:

Facebook - TheRedBoxProject.Lymington.Brockenhurst

Twitter    - @RedLymington

Instagram - redboxlymingtonbrockenhurst