Hey Girls Fundraising Collaboration: Interview With Rechenda Smith

We’re super excited to announce our latest fundraising collaboration with social enterprise Hey Girls, an organisation aiming to eradicate period poverty in the UK. Hey Girls produce award-winning environmentally-friendly period products, and their ‘buy one, donate one’ business model allows them to funnel all profits back into the fight to end period poverty. 

In the UK, around one in ten people cannot access or afford period products, and in Scotland, that figure is closer to one in four. As a female-fronted brand, we wanted to partner with an organisation that works to improve the lives of women and girls across the UK: access to period products is a necessity, not a luxury, and we want to help support the work that Hey Girls are doing to end period poverty for good. We’re donating £5 from the sale of every pair of pink cord Bleecker dungarees and every pink cord Mercer pinafore to the organisation.

We caught up with Head of Marketing and Communications, Rechenda, to learn more about their work!

For anyone who isn’t aware of Hey Girls, could you share a little about the ethos and main motivations behind the organisation?

Hey Girls is a plant powered buy-one, donate-one period product social enterprise. Founded by CEO Celia and her two daughters Kate and Bec as a kitchen-table start-up in 2018 after experiencing period poverty first-hand themselves, Hey Girls produces environmentally-friendly tampons, pads, cups and pants. Since then, we have donated over 20 million period products to people in need in the UK. You can buy our range online at www.heygirls.co.uk, pick it up in Waitrose and the Co-op, or via an eco store.

What resources or initiatives will this money help support?

All our profits go into helping promote period equality and period dignity. We work with a network of 150 community partners – from women’s refuges, homeless shelters and food banks to baby-and-toddler groups and support groups, that give our products out on the front line. The money from our Joanie collab will be used to provide our award-winning period products to people in the UK who can’t afford or access them, as well as educational support tools around period health.

How has the social enterprise grown and developed since the early days?

We started with just three people, but now we have 20 members of staff working from two dispatch hubs, one near Edinburgh and another in Norfolk. We pay everyone the real living wage or more and try to employ people who are furthest from the labour market, such as working mums or people re-entering the workforce. As well as supplying supermarkets, eco-stores and selling online, we also supply councils, universities, colleges, schools and businesses, which is very exciting. We’re really committed to protecting the environment and are constantly improving our products to make them as sustainable as possible. Last year we were even recognised at the government’s Heroes of Net Zero Awards for our efforts on zero-waste packaging and our new reusable period product collection.

Are there any exciting plans coming up in the pipeline you could share with us? 

There is always tons going on at Hey Girls! We are expanding overseas to Australia, we’re soon to be launching a new website and new inclusive packaging, we’ve just launched the world’s first period product app that allows people to pick up free period products with the Scottish government and have been chosen to provide free period products and education to people up and down the country as part of Women In Sport’s new ‘Big Sister’ project, which encourages women into sport via mentors.

The pandemic has had a huge impact on many organisations– how has this affected Hey Girls being able to run, and support those in period poverty? 

Periods don’t stop for a pandemic. We had to pivot, especially for our council, university, college and school customers. These customers traditionally bought our products in bulk to give out free-of-charge to residents in need via libraries, health centres and other public buildings and to students on campus. However, COVID-19 meant that people were now at home, not out-and-about in public places. How could we keep supplying people in need with period products? We devised an initiative called ‘home packs’, where we sent our period products to people’s doorsteps on behalf of our public sector customers. Because of this scheme, we were also able to keep all our staff in work during the pandemic, which was a great thing, too.

Do you have any tips or advice on how anyone reading this could get involved with Hey Girls? 

Head over to our website to purchase our period products, donate online, download our educational resources and sign up to our newsletter www.heygirls.co.uk.

There will be a time in most of our lives when a ‘Code Red’ strikes at the wrong ‘time of the month’, ‘Aunt Flo’ will visit without announcement… Always when we least expect it, always when we’re least prepared in the personal supplies department, and always if you’ve dared to wear the white jeans. Whispers will go under toilet stalls, the rustling of handbags ensues, perfect strangers will exchange sanitary goods covertly to help out a sister in distress. But imagine for a moment if that was all the time… perhaps there wasn’t anyone else there? Maybe you didn’t have someone you could ask for help? Perhaps no one ever taught you any of these cringeworthy ways that were invented to avoid using the word ‘period’ or perhaps you didn’t even know what it was to menstruate? Maybe it was simply too expensive and you couldn’t afford the period products you needed or had to improvise with something else entirely unsuitable? 

A couple of years ago I read a poster (as you do) on the back of a toilet door… it explained that the sanitary products provided on the shelf behind me were complementary, provided for the instance of being caught short. The venue had purchased these for their customers from Hey Girls, a social enterprise who would match their spend by providing the same eco-friendly, award winning period products to women in need.

We at Joanie are so proud to support Hey Girls, to help them provide free period products to schools, libraries and community centres for people who cannot access or afford these themselves. We pledge to encourage conversation around periods as to talk out loud helps to break down the taboos and stigma around menstruation. Period poverty is very real, by contributing to this very worthy cause we do our small part to help end a big problem.”

Lucy, Brand Director at Joanie.

“We’re totally thrilled to be joining up with Joanie Clothing on this collab. As a plant-powered period product social enterprise, we’re good for society as well as for nature. All our profits go into helping alleviate period poverty in the UK and fighting the myths and taboos that still surround periods. By buying an item in our range with Joanie, not only will you look great, but you’ll also be helping a vital cause.”

Kate Smith, Co-Founder & Donations Manager at Hey Girls.