Announcing Our Summer 2013 Cross-Country Bicycle Tour!

Sustainable Cycles is off to an incredible start in 2013!  We were awarded the year-long Lead Now Fellowship; we are presenting at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference this June; and we are sending Spokeswomen on a trip from the Bay Area to New York City – 3,250 miles!  

Our 2013 trip will be led by Rachel Horn, a recent graduate of UC Berkeley (read more about Rachel in her bio on our “About” page). The trip begins April 28th in the Bay Area and will take about three months.  Passionate Spokeswomen are invited to come along for either the entire trip or a short leg.   Please email Rachel directly if you are interested in joining up!

rachihorn@gmail.com

Like our previous trip, menstrual cup companies are donating cups for us to give away.  Spokeswomen will write blog posts and articles, do interviews, give workshops, and make a ruckus to raise awareness about sustainable menstrual products.

Donate now to Rachel’s trip! Her total budget for the 3 month trip (including food, bike repair, sleeping arrangements, a train ticket back to California, everything) is $2,000.

We run on a tight (practically non-existent) budget and we are proud of it!  On our last bike trip we spent just $1,400, while giving away 200 menstrual cups.  Within a year of use the cups we gave away will save our giftees $9,600 (considering that most women spend $4/month on throw-away supplies).  Since the cups last 10 years, those cups will save our giftees $96,000 dollars!  

Think about it – with an investment of $1,400, Sustainable Cycles saved women $96,000 – that is $68 dollars of value for every $1 invested.  Of course it’s not just about money – those cups are also reducing waste, and benefiting women’s health.

It’s a great investment – donate to keep this incredible project going strong!

Sustainable Cycles has been selected for the year-long, $1,000 “Lead Now Fellowship”

Sustainable Cycles, in partnership with girls’ empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation (FCF), has been selected as one of 6 projects to receive a $1,000 Fellowship though SustainUS, a youth environmentalist organization!  The Fellowships were awarded to 6 small-scale sustainable development projects all over the United States.  For the year 2013, Sustainable Cycles will partner with FCF campers Tyra Davis and Aniah Bland. They will receive mentoring and support for their project, and get to know the other fellows though conference calls and in-person meetings.

We will be working on creating educator’s packets, and organizing a cross country bike trip to come (more on that later). We’d also like to begin writing posts about some of the international public health work going on regarding access to affordable, sustainable menstrual products.  In Raleigh, Toni, Aniah, and Tyra are developing a line of reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a microventure to support FCF.  So far, SC has focused on menstrual cups – we are excited to branch out.  The awesome thing about pads is that we (or anyone!) can make them ourselves without any fancy equipment, and have a low-cost, sustainable product.

Until now, all Sustainable Cycles’ funds have come from grassroots fundraising and small donations, or out of Sarah and Toni’s pockets. We can’t wait to step up our game in 2013!

Here’s some more information about the project. Please let us know if you want to know more, get involved, or if you have any ideas for us:

Tyra Davis sewing cloth pads at FCF’s office in Raleigh, North Carolina

Project Description:

Campers from Full Circles Foundation (represented by Tyra Davis, Aniah Bland, and Toni Craige), will partner with Sustainable Cycles (represented by Sarah Konner and Toni Craige). The FCF girls will learn to make reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a fundraiser for FCF, and they will create “educators’ packets” on the what, why and how of sustainable menstrual products. Sustainable Cycles will distribute the packets to community educators all over the country. Sustainable Cycles is also planning and promoting an upcoming cross-country bicycle tour to raise awareness.

Why?:

Conventional products are expensive and wasteful: The average woman in the US will spend about $2000 over her lifetime on single-use, disposable menstrual products. Conventional disposable products are made of trees, bleach, cotton, and glue (none of which are great things to put inside your body). After one use they are thrown away. The average woman throws away a huge truckload of menstrual products over her lifetime.

Very few people know about the alternatives: A very small proportion of US women use sustainable alternatives (menstrual cups, sea sponges, reusable cloth pads). It is not lucrative business to sell these products (they are inexpensive, and you do not need to replace them often). Our culture of silence about women’s bodies and menstruation stops people from even talking about the issue.

There is limited access to sustainable products in communities that most need them: Menstrual products are a significant financial burden on low-income women. They often do not have access to information about alternatives, or the up-front cost of the alternatives is prohibitive.

How we are addressing the challenge:

Making an alternative: We are making a sustainable product by hand, on a small scale, which will replace tons of trash produced by multinational corporations.

Income source for FCF girls and programming: This project could eventually provide fair and empowering employment for FCF girls.  FCF has a long-term vision of having youth-owned cooperative businesses all over the Southeastern United States.

Sparking a grassroots movement, reaching out to new communities, empowering community educators: We hope that the hands-on experience of making the pads and educator’s packets will get FCF girls fired-up about these issues. FCF works primarily with low-income women of color – a community which does not tend to have a lot of access to sustainable products. The girls will have the tools and enthusiasm needed to spark a grassroots change in their communities. Sustainable Cycles will reach out to our large national network of supporters to put the educator’s packets in action all over the country.

Buy a Cup, support Sustainable Cycles

Click this banner to buy a menstrual cup online –  $12.50 will go to Sustainable Cycles!  Perfect holiday gifts…

Hi Everyone!

It has been almost a year since our ride down the West Coast!  We wanted to check in, share some news, and ask for your support in the next phase of Sustainable Cycles.

Where we are going next:  

• Make “educator’s packets” with literature, fact sheets, visuals, and samples so that people all over the country and world can do effective education work in their community.
• Going on another bike trip (funds permitting).
• Attend the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in summer 2013.
• Continue to write about our work on our blog.

Give back, and invest in our next steps:  There are many ways to support Sustainable Cycles.  Please continue to tell friends about the project and spread the word.  We also need some funds to make educators packets, and some money in the piggy bank to travel to conferences and go on a bike trip.

Buy a cup: If you buy a Keeper or Mooncup through our website, Sustainable Cycles gets $12.50.

*This is so great!  It advances our mission of getting more people to use cups, and helps support our education work.

*Think about it – do you know any women who don’t use a cup?  Any birthdays coming up?  Can you buy some gifts in advance of the holidays?

*This promotion ends January 1st – please forward this announcement to anyone who might want to buy a cup for themselves or a friend.

CLICK THE BANNER AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE,

OR

GO DIRECTLY TO THE KEEPER’S WEBSITE TO “ORDER A KEEPER OR MOON CUP” - Sustainable Cycles will get $12.50.  Let us know if you have any trouble ordering – call Toni at (919) 219-8100.

Invest in Sustainable Cycles: To decide how much to donate, take into account what you can afford, and these facts:

*$35 – The market value of a cup (which giftees got for free).

*$48 – The amount of money a cup will save you in a year.

*$480 – The amount of money a cup will save you in its 10 year lifespan.

You can donate through PayPal on our website.

How “productive” is Sustainable Cycles: We run on a tight (practically non-existent) budget, and we are proud of it!  Since our trip, all Sustainable Cycles costs (mostly making photocopies) have come out of our pockets, and we do all of our education work for free. We pulled off a 3 month bike trip (including plane tickets, and a new bicycle) with $1,400 and some in-kind donations – most notably the cups, which were generously donated by The Keeper, DivaCup, and Lunette.  Some math:

*We gave away 200 menstrual cups, retail value $7,000.  With a year of use, the cups we gave away will save our giftees $9,600 (considering that most women spend $4/month on throw-away supplies).  Since the cups last 10 years, those cups will save our giftees $96,000 dollars!  

*Think about it – with an investment of $1,400, Sustainable Cycles saved women $96,000 – that is $68 dollars of value for every $1 invested.  Of course it’s not just about money – those cups are reducing waste, and benefiting women’s health.

Help us keep pedaling along by buying a cup, or donating through PayPal.  If you can’t afford a monetary donation right now, that’s OK – we hope you are inspired to keep spreading the word – let us know if we can support you in any way.

All the best,

Toni Craige and Sarah Konner

We Have a Winner! (Two Actually), and Other News

Hey everyone, remember us?  Since our big bike trip, Sustainable Cycles has been more on the back burner, but there is still some great news to report.  We have been awarding prizes for the handsome young man contest, following up with giftees from our bike trip, presenting at conferences, and more.

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All along, the Handsome Young Man Project, (“The Handsome Young Man Project: Sarah and Toni bicycle down the West Coast, live on $4 a day, and Talk to Handsome Young Men About Sustainable Approaches to Menstruation”), has been one of the more absurd and fun parts of Sustainable Cycles.  We found that many men were curious about menstrual cups, and wanted to help with our efforts.  We decided to create a contest:

The handsome young man who convinces the most women to switch to a menstrual cup wins.  Brilliant – any man wants to fall into the category of handsome and young, and men love contests.   The promised prize?  An enormous menstrual cup shaped beer goblet!

See the original post here for details.  (Warning: this project should not be taken seriously).

After getting home from the trip, I set about finding the right potter for the job – classy, manly pottery for a good price.  Luckily, we are family friends with Mark Hewitt - fabulous potter with a good sense of humor.  He agreed to have his apprentice, Seth Guzovsky make us two goblets for $50.

Big pots like this are Mark’s signature– due to budget restrictions, we commissioned something more modest, but no less impressive…

Mark’s wood-fired kiln.

One of the goblets by Mark’s apprentice, Seth.

It was impossible to pick just one winner!  Each of our two winners got one of these goblets:

The text says: “This certifies that [name] has been deemed an exceptional advocate of sustainable menstrual products, and therefore of women’s health, a fair economy, and a healthy earth by Sustainable Cycles. In recognition for his sensitivity, boldness, good looks, youth, and virility, he is awarded this giant menstrual cup shaped beer goblet.

THE WINNERS:

Ben hosted us at his house in Olympia.  In high school (!!!) at an age when most boys blush at the mere mention of periods, Benjamin bought menstrual cups for two female friends.  Ben with his cup:

Ben with his cup.

Cole is an irrepressible menstrual cup enthusiast.  He convinced many women in his large community to make the switch, and is a true pioneer in his openness to talk about these issues.  He also got an article about sustainable menstrual products published in Street Roots, a newspaper focused on empowering Portland’s homeless community.

Cole with his cup.

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Now onto less ridiculous matters…

After getting back from our trip, we sent out a survey to all 200 giftees asking for feedback about the cups, and finding out about their “spokeswomen” activities.  Whenever I need a little pick-me-up, I can always go look at their responses:

Stats from our survey:

*90% told a friend

*46% are interested in going on a SC bike trip

* 5 people (6% of respondents) have already given a small, informal workshop on cups! 60% may do so in the future

 Fun testimonials:

“Through my work as a social worker I have given out 3 of the 4 cups you gave to me. I am also talking about the cup with friends, peers and clients promoting both the environmental and cost benefits. Thank you for your hard work on this! It is a great project and your dedication rocks!” 

“I’m basically enamored. So much easier, so much cleaner than using anything else – I want to personally hug whoever invented these things. My housemate is making all the girls in our house personalized menstrual cup bags. We’re obsessed. I do a lot of talking about it with people whom I think might be interested in switching over – told a few people where to get them and about the learning curve. I’m thinking of getting my sister one for Christmas, but she’d probably think it was weird. Anyway thanks so much for filling us in about this. I couldn’t be happier.”

“I was really NOT interested in using Cups when I first heard about them. I was fine with using tampons and the whole process sounded gross to me. Then, I went with some of my JV housemates to the talk at In Other Words and I felt a little bit persuaded. When Toni gave the non-Cup using girls in our house cups, I felt like I should at least give it three cycles, which is was recommended by a housemate, and I was fully prepared to hate it and be done by December…I LOVE IT!! I can’t get over how much easier it is. It is so much cleaner, I feel better about not having those disgusting cotton toxic tampons in my body, and not creating all that paper waste. I talk about them to everyone who will listen and I am committed to getting my sister and best friend to start using Cups by the end of this year!”

“The women who came to my co-op house were incredibly enthusiastic and helpful. My friends and I learned a lot from them, and continue to benefit from their communication and support. The Sustainable Cycles workshop generated a meaningful and lasting conversation in our community about the issues of womens’ bodies and health.”

*   *   *

I had the great opportunity to attend two day-long conferences put on by Law Students for Reproductive Justice.  The first was the southern regional meeting at UNC Chapel Hill, which I attended as a guest, and the second was the mid-Atlantic conference at American University in Washington DC, where I spoke on a panel about reproduction and sexuality education.

Reproductive justice is huge in the news right now (Susan G. Komen/ Planned Parenthood, Catholics and birth control, the Right to Know Act, etc).  I never would have even heard about the conference if the organizer, Nikola, had not posted a comment on our blog and asked to get in touch. Then– and it almost feels like a joke– she asked me to be on a panel!  It was wonderful to hear such accomplished professionals talk about their work in Reproductive Justice, and it was a great honor to be alongside two advocates for comprehensive sex ed in DC.

Watching Sarah Audelo of Advocates for Youth give her presentation.

* * *

I have been working with a girls empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation, which works to build strong girls, a fair economy, and a healthy earth.  Sounds a lot like the mission of Sustainable Cycles…

FCF’s main program is a summer camp called “Strong Camp” for low-income girls ages 7-15.  I did a workshop for the girls 12 and up– the youngest group I have ever given a Sustainable Cycles presentation to.  More so than older women, younger girls tend to be “grossed out” by this topic, and less inclined to “poke around” and get to know themselves in the way they would need to to use a menstrual cup.  I was able to give away 5 cups to some wonderful girls.  Several felt that they were not “ready” now, but may be in the future, and a few others wanted to try out cloth pads.

What struck me most was how important frank, accurate conversations about the body are to teens.  So much is learned through whispers and euphamisms, oversexed by the media, or silenced by shame.  Everyone was paying very close attention!

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We have updated the other pages of the blog – check it out, and forward this along to friends who might be interested. Please be in touch with questions, and comments.

More news coming soon…

Chapter Two

If you can believe it, we are now writing to you, each from the comfort of our respective homes back on the east coast! Don’t worry… there is still more to come and we’ll keep it interesting. Our bicycling adventure is over (for the time being), but we are still doing lots of exciting work to keep Sustainable Cycles growing into its future.  Toni just finished her trip with our friend Kaitlin, and Sarah has been in Michigan giving away cups and educating folks at the NASCO conference.  To date, we given away almost 300 cups!  We are finally settling into our more stationary lives (Toni in North Carolina and Sarah in Brooklyn), doing follow-up work from the trip, and envisioning and creating the next projects for Sustainable Cycles.  But first, reports from the field!  Since we’ve split up, this post will break our “we” convention and use the first person to describe each of our post-trip experiences.

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Sarah flew home on October 14^th, and I had 10 whole days to spend exploring LA before heading off on bike-trip-part-two with our friend Kaitlin.  Our event at the Bicycle Kitchen, that we wrote about in our last post, was a lucky start to my time in LA. We met a whole room-full of interesting and motivated women who helped me make plans for the rest of my stay.  April of Chicks on Bikes Radio, a monthly podcast about women in cycling, invited me to meet up for an interview for her show. You can download the free podcast here (it’s the 5th episode).  I organized several small workshops in LA– revisiting the Bicycle Kitchen twice, and teaching a giving away cups at the LA Ecovillage, Occupy LA, and Casa Maura Clarke, a community of Jesuit Volunteers.

A bus stop by Occupy LA

Giving away cups at Occupy LA

My adventure with Kaitlin was a great epilogue to my trip with Sarah, and also the beginning of the next steps for Sustainable Cycles – opening the project to other inspired women who want to do this work.  Kaitlin and I  were less ambitious in our mileage, than on the trip with Sarah. We stuck to a small area with relatively safe roads, and beautiful scenery.

 We bicycled out of LA on the Ballona Creek bike path.  The beds of the LA River and Ballona Creek were completely covered in concrete after a series of heavy floods in 1938.  Much of the year, the concrete course is completely dry. Think of the scene in Greece where they are racing cars in the concrete channel… that’s the LA river.  Today, plants are slowing growing in the cracks in the concrete, and bicycle paths run alongside the waterways.  Ballona Creek empties into the Pacific, and we headed north to marvel the strip on Venice Beach and Santa Monica.  Once the bike path ended, we threw our bikes in a pick-up truck to head north on the 101 to Santa Barbara, where we stayed in an amazing group of the student coops.  Again, I have been so impressed by all the smart, progressive, and community-minded college students I’ve met in housing co-operatives on this trip.

Skate park in Venice Beach

Thanks for the ride!

From Santa Barbara, we headed northeast to the wine country east of the coastal mountain range, then back to the coast to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed at “The Establishment” a community housing 19 people.  Mo, a resident of The Establishment, published a blog post about our project on the BambuBatu (a bambo clothing line) website soon after we left town– thanks Mo!

Santa Ynez Valley

Giving away cups at The Establishment

Sign outside The Establishment

After leaving San Luis Obispo (affectiontely called “SLO” by residents), we stayed in the beach towns of Morro Bay, Cambria, and San Simeon.  Several days when we were going north on Highway 1, there were headwinds gusting up to 25mph!  That factor combined with the beauty of the scenery left us inclined to linger longer at our lunch stops and then decide, “let’s just stay here!”  So, we didn’t make it very far north before needing to head back to LA, but we didn’t mind.  Maybe it’s because these were the last spots I got to stay on my West Coast adventure, or maybe because they are just plain beautiful, this part of the Central California coast has become one of my favorite places in the world.  It is absurdly magical.  You can visit Hearst Castle, the palace-on-a-hill of the newspaper mogul, replete with grand European architecture and a herd of zebras in the pastures below.  A few miles north, hundreds of elephant seals bask in the sun.  Looking with an east-coaster’s eye, I can’t believe how spacious and undeveloped it is.  Most of the land along the central California coast is home to cattle.  There are way too many coves and cliffs and caves to ever finish exploring.

The indoor pool at Hearst Castle

Morro Bay

Little cave in a little cove in San Simeon State Park

Check out that rainbow!

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 Meanwhile, on the other side of the country— news from Sarah:

Hey y’all… I live in New York City now! Wow! It’s the land of possibility, interesting people, great art, and so much cool stuff to do, that you’re always missing something. In my first week in this Big Apple city, I was able to finally meet, in person, the wonderful ladies who run Lunette, the menstrual cup company based in Finland. Together with their marketing director from Snapdragon, we all shared stories and brainstormed future projects for Lunette, Sustainable Cycles, and this movement in general.

What an amazing time to move to New York City... Occupy Wallstreet!

            Within my first week in New York, I also got to meet with Kim Burgas – a brilliant young woman introduced to us by Julia Schopik of the Keeper. Kim is working on a project called the Crimson Campaign—much in the same way that Toni and I are working, her project aims to promote sustainable approaches to menstruation and shift the covert and shameful culture surrounding periods. Like Sustainable Cycles, the Crimson Campaign is focused on grassroots education and empowerment of women teaching one another, without working for any one company, and without selling anything. Kim is currently working with the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research to help plan a conference for 2013 in New York City. Kim has invited both Toni and myself to be involved in the conference and its planning. It is a really exciting event because it will bring together scientific research and activism—a rare working pair—to share knowledge and brainstorm about this movement in the coming years.

The Crimson Campaign is doing very inspiring work... be sure to check it out.

            My first big event post-bicycle-trip was to the NASCO Institute in Ann Arbor, MI. Most of you probably know about student housing co-ops by now, since we have visited many and have sung their praise. NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation) is an umbrella organization for student housing cooperatives from around the country. Once a year motivated students from housing co-ops all over the country come together for a conference to share knowledge, teach workshops, and make connections within the movement. After all of our success with the housing cooperatives on the west coast, I was excited to make it this event. I had a table set up in the commons, next to the Beehive Collective (if you’ve never seen their work… you must!).

"The True Cost of Coal" by the Beehive Collective

Thanks to Julia and Lou from the Keeper, I had 30 Mooncups and Keepers to give away to representatives from over twenty different houses, and I talked to many more people than that! I encouraged everyone who got a cup to go back to their houses and speak about sustainable menstruation loud, clear, and unabashedly. Many of the giftees from the conference are now working on getting our article about sustainable menstruation published in their co-op or school newsletters. Check out the NASCO Tumbler video from my booth at the conference. This felt like and incredibly effective place to “plant seeds” and give away cups. I look forward to hearing the report-backs!

The sign for my table at NASCO

            My last bit of news is that I was recently interviewed on a Seattle-based radio show, The Dr. Pat Show, with Tracy Puhl from Gladrags. We talked about menstrual cups, Sustainable Cycles, Gladrags, and what we learned from the people we met on our trip. Dr. Pat had some great questions for us, and Tracy was able to offer a free cup give-a-way to one of the listeners. Thank you Tracy for inviting me to be part of this!

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There is certainly a shift to be made – doing this work inside my everyday life rather than on a trip devoted to it. I want to continue to speak out over the hush-hush of menstruation, and find innovative ways to help people open up to this lifestyle change. Toni and I have our work cut out for us. In the coming months, we want to do thorough follow up with all of our giftees from the trip, apply for fiscal sponsorship (so that you can all make tax-deductible donations!), and apply for grants, so that Sustainable Cycles can have a supported future. There are several amazing women we have met that want to go on Sustainable Cycles bike trips, Toni and I are planning another trip through the southeast later this year, and we want to keep writing, publishing, speaking, teaching workshops, and doing outreach (I will soon be visiting women’s centers and health clinics in New York City).

If you have ideas about this work, we want to hear them. If you want to take an active role by publishing an article or teaching a workshop, we want to give you resources. If you want to help us out— keep telling your friends about menstrual cups, and if we gave you a cup, keep an eye out for a survey coming your way. We are in a privileged position right now, to collect some very useful data about how menstrual cups work for recent converts, from a wide range of different kinds of people. Thanks for all your continued support. Chapter two! Bon voyage! More to come!

Help us get on Ellen Degeneres!

Hi everyone,

We really, really, REALLY want to be on the Ellen Degeneres show. 

Here’s the fantasy:  we camp in Ellen and Portia’s backyard in LA.  They make us vegan breakfast, then we ride bikes together to the studio where they film the show.  After Ellen tells her enormous audience a bit about our project, we ride our fully-loaded touring bikes on stage and tell the world about menstrual cups, thus multiplying the effectiveness of our trip 100 times.

Help us!  1)  Write Ellen an email telling her why we should be on her show.

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/show/respond/?PlugID=10

2)  Post a comment on her Facebook page (Ellen Degeneres, “public figure”). 

Write about:

• Menstrual cups and how great they are.
• You love them.
• They save you money.
• They are great for the environment.
• They are healthy (no TSS, no dioxins, no bleaches).
• How you met us.  Did we give you a cup?  Camp in your yard?  Get a ride in your pickup truck.
• Explain why the women of the world need to know about this!
• •  Are you glad we told you?
  • Who have you told?

Please take 15 minutes to write to Ellen—this could really have a huge impact.  Every woman who switches to reusables saves 1,000-2,000 dollars and a huge amount of trash.  Ellen’s audience is enormous!

Thanks a lot!

Technical Difficulties in Beachlandia…

It has been harder than anticipated to find a place to write this post.  We ran out of time in Portland, and tried to write to you from a bathroom at Cape Lookout State Park on the Oregon Coast using Sarah’s I-phone as a modem. So romantic–sitting on the bathroom floor with a tiny computer and an I-phone,  and telling curious camp bathroom users about reusable menstrual products.  Alas, no service.

We regret that we lost track of the cord that connects Toni’s camera to the computer, so we have a chunk of time that we can’t share visually with you, but we do have some recent photos from Sarah’s camera. Other things we’ve lost: two water bottles, one pair of bicycles gloves, our mini bottles of hot sauce, vinegar, and olive oil (food’s pretty bland now), two spoons, and one tupperware. We need to shape up.

Sarah feeding Toni blackberries

Peanut butter-cabbage tacos for dinner. We're eatin' well dad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

Last night was the new moon (taditionally a time to let things go and start anew). For reasons not worth explaining Toni and I ended up at the top of a two and a half mile downhill, just as the darkness was descending. Quickly realizing that we could not possibly ride our fully loaded bikes down a steep, pitch black winding road, we started a slow and humbling, new-moon-rebirthing kind of walk through the deeply dark night to the state park where we spent the night. We planned to pop open a bottle of cheap wine when we got to camp to wind down, but by the time we set up our tent and realized we had no bottle opener, we decided to just go to bed. We massaged each others arms (sore from slowing the momentum of our heavy bicycles as we walked), and concked out. Why have a full moon night on the new moon? This morning we re-organized all of our stuff, and are feeling excited about the next phase of our trip.

Since Portland, Toni andI  have been on the very rural Oregon coast.  There is not much to report in terms of events, but we have been in doing some great biking in beautiful country, and have given away 4 cups.

Today, we finally got to highway 101: our road for our time in Oregon.  After ab0ut an hour of harrowing riding alongside logging  trucks, we needed to calm our nerves, and smoke a metaphorical ciggarette.  We are sitting in a little bar in Hebo, Oregon (country music videos, farm hands, motorcyclists, etc) using Wi-Fi and sneaking bites of leftover grits and butter beans so the bartender won’t notice. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

This is what we planned to post just after we left Portland…

Wednesday August 24th

Sarah and I are spending the day in the living room of one of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps communities in Portland.  They are all away for the day, working in different social services and advocacy organizations around Portland. It’s great to finally have some down-time to work at the computer and have a rest from bicycling!

We left Olympia on Sunday morning and arrived in Portland on Tuesday around 2pm.  The first day, we were on a lovely bike path for a few hours.  We got to tell a few other bikers about our project, and got two spontaneous $5 donations.  One woman is a teacher, and promised to make copies of our fliers to give out to her friends at a party she is attending this weekend. 

Sunday evening, as dusk was approaching and we were beginning to look for a place to camp, we happened upon a whole field of tents… and bicycles!  Turns out we had run into the crew from Ride Across Washington (RAW), a 6-day “supported tour” (meaning  trucks carry your stuff and other people cook for you) all over the state.   They were great hosts, letting us “camp in their yard” and giving us dinner and breakfast. 

Monday we got started biking at 7:30am, hoping to make it to Portland (almost 100 miles that day).  We tried our best, but ended up camping in Columbia City, a tiny town 30 miles north of Portland.  We stayed in the back yard of an elderly couple, Jenny and JD.  Jenny told us that she had always wanted to do something like our trip, but that “girls didn’t do things like that back then.”  One kid she knew had gone on a 200mile bike trip, and another had roller-bladed to the next town.  Jenny offered us the use of their bathroom (extensively decorated with ducks), and told us to help ourselves to the kale growing in the garden.

We are so excited to be in Portland, and dig into the sustainable menstruation part of our project.

Yesterday evening, we had a great event at In Other Words, a feminist community space, library, and bookstore.  About 20 people showed up, only three of which already used cups.  We did a lot of nuts and bolts education on the why and how of using a cup.  A few bought Mooncups right then and there from the store, we gave a few cups away, and many people left interested in buying themselves a cup later. 

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Since we have recived so much kindness from Toni’s Jesuit Volunteer (JV) network, a little more about them:

Jesuit Volunteers live in community on a very modest shared budget, with just $80 of personal spending money a month (some of which goes towards buying pads and tampons).  For a JV, and many other low-income people, $35 dollars in one chunk is hard to part with.  We decided to give cups to half the JVs in each house we visit, and have them split the price of buying the cups for the other half.  That way, everyone gets a cup for half price—the cups are made accessible, but there is also some sense of responsibility and sacrifice to own one.  When we came here yesterday, one women in the house had a cup—now all five have cups.  Its’s really exciting to know that their community will be producing zero waste from menstrual products!

We hope that there will be a big ripple effect from each cup we give away.  In the case of the JVs, the cups go to idealistic passionate people who have access to underserved communities.  Many JVs go on to become leaders in social services and advocacy organizations.  They can be part of the project of bringing sustainable, affordable, healthy, and empowering menstrual products to underserved women.

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We have been distributing copies of an amazing zine, “Menstruation Sensation,” written by Alyssa Beers (www.alyssabeers.com) of Gladrags. When we got in touch with the company about copying the zine as educational material, Tracy Puhl, the now-owner Gladrags, invited us to their office in Portland to meet her, see their space, and talk about what we are doing. Gladrags is a Portland based company started by one woman sewing cl0th reuseable pads and selling them to her friends. The rags became very popular, and now Gladrags are sold all over the country. In addition to cloth pads, Gladrags also stocks and sells sea sponges, and menstrual cups from all three companies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracy was enthusiastic about our trip. She gave us Gladrags to add to our stock of gifts to give away, educated us about reuseable pads, and gave us two great books about menstruation and the health risks associated with pads and tampons. Gladrags is a great connection for our project.  In addition to making their own products, Gladrags promotes and sells all sustainable menstrual options. Gladrags often offers wholesale prices on bulk orders to non-profits and social service agencies. We will make sure to tell caseworkers and organizations we meet along our way.

In order to help us track some part of our impact on menstrual cup sales, Tracy offered to create a coupon code for sales on the Gladrags website, “sustainablecycles.” Anyone can use that code to order any product from Gladrags to get a 15% discount (and all cups ship free!).

We think what Tracy is doing is awesome, and we hope she will come ride bikes with us for a weekend somewhere on the coast.

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For those of you who don’t know already, Toni and I have two grandiose/whimsical goals for this trip. 1) Get Portlandia to make an episode about us, and 2) be on the Ellen Degeneres show.

Portlandia…

 When Toni was being interviewed for the Willamette Weekly article (see “press” sidebar), the reporter commented that our whole trip sounds like a Portlandia skit.  For those of you who don’t know, Portlandia is a TV show that makes fun of the idealistic culture of Portland 20-somethings.  At first we were a bit offended, then we realized that people making fun of us is a great way to get the word out about reusuable menstrual products.  Any press is good press, so they say.

We have sensitive ears, and were able to find a film shoot for the TV show while we were in Portland!   We pulled aside a filming assistant, Tucker, and told him about our project.  Tucker learned  all about menstrual cups, our project, and why we would make a perfect Portlandia skit.  We gave Tucker a menstrual cup and got him to promise to get the cup to the director’s wife.  We stressed his responsibility to make sure that she uses the cup. 

Who knows what will come of it– Tucker!  If you are reading this…. don’t let us down!

Our Ellen fantasy…

We camp in Ellen and Portia’s backyard.  They make us homemade vegan breakfast in the morning, then ride bikes with us to the studio.  After Ellen announces our project, we ride our fully loaded bikes on the stage and tell Ellen’s huge audience about sustainable menstruation – multiplying the effectiveness of our trip 100 times, at least.

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Let us know if you have any connections with Portlandia or Ellen DeGeneres.  Stay tuned to be part of a mass lobbying effort directed at Ellen – if we get 30 people to write to her, maybe she will notice!

Remember, if you are interested in buying a menstrual cup for yourself or a friend, you can get 15% off and free shipping by using the promotional code “sustainablecycles” at gladrags.com

 

 

 

Celebrate!

We are just 8 days away from our send-off, and things are coming together fabulously!

We have gotten cups donated by all three of the menstrual cup companies in the US (Diva Cup, the Keeper, and Lunette).  I just got 60 Diva Cups in the mail yesterday– an amazingly quick turn around by Francine Chambers, the founder of Diva Cup– we had our first phone conversation on Thursday morning!  Cups from Lunette and the Keeper will be coming in soon.  We are so excited to have the support of all the manufacturers.

Friends and family have also offered amazing support.  Thanks to:

• Those of you who donated online– we have raised 900 dollars: enough to eat and fix our bikes comfortably for the trip.
• My mom and Sarah’s Dad– who are covering our plane tickets with their frequent flier miles.
• Patrick Fay– who donated 2 sets of panniers and a mini-laptop (!!).

We can certainly still use more donations, but it feels great to have a baseline to work with.  We know we can do the trip without going completely broke.  It sounds corny– but this is a dream come true.  Sarah and I cannot thank you enough for helping to make this trip possible.

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In other news:

• Sarah is writing to all sorts of feminist organizations, radical bookstores/spaces, alternative communities, and yoga studios throughout our route.  It’ll be great to meet these people on our trip.
• I am sending out a press release to the newspapers along the way.
• I gave away our first cup yesterday! We will keep track of the age, email address, location, and a few details (when did you first hear of menstrual cups, etc) in a notebook.  A few months later, we can email the whole group and ask them how things are going.