Community Connect is hooking you up and helping you out with resources you can use… and there’s a new place for girls and women to go for support on the south side. Just in time for Women’s History Month this March!
The Gyrls in the H.O.O.D. Foundation has taken the work they’ve been doing in their mobile unit and moved it into a new health center on 71st and St. Lawrence (605 E. 71st).
Founder Chez Smith drove around in her red minivan that she called her “hood mobile” for the past 5 years to help end “period poverty” – that’s when girls or women don’t have access to menstrual hygiene products like pads or tampons during that time of the month. Smith said before the center opened, she served 20 to 30 school-aged girls a month who were using newspaper, paper towels and often missing school because they couldn’t afford those products.
Through the center, she wants to increase that number to up to 100 per month and provide support to teen girls with “H.O.O.D. Kits” that also have hygiene products, underwear and other care items, plus provide social services, reproductive and sexual health education, pregnancy tests, emergency contraception, and other healthcare.
Gyrls in the H.O.O.D. Health Services Center is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and you can find out more about them online at this link.
Our community moves forward best possible when we get the help we need and give the help we can!