Ladybugs Movement supplies feminine hygiene products to homeless women

The Ladybugs Movement, which focuses on ways to help homeless women access basic feminine and hygiene products, is one of the latest service organizations on campus. The organization was started by Crystal Arellano, a master’s student studying health education and promotion.

The idea to lead the organization started in the summer of 2016. Arellano, Iselin Arias, Lucy Chen and Gigi Ady, masters students studying social work and public health at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, as well as Irene Cuevas and Shell Barba, two close friends of Arellano’s from high school, decided to kickstart an organization to provide hygiene products for women in need.

“This campaign brings together womanhood, hygiene, health and vulnerable populations,” Arellano said.

While traveling in Cuba, Arellano was faced with an urgent need for feminine products and could not access them. Her experience inspired the Ladybugs Movement.

Another motivation was the community in South Central Los Angeles, where many homeless women lack basic access to fundamental resources like feminine hygiene products.

Since the organization’s founding, the Ladybugs Movement has worked in coordination with several shelters in Los Angeles to understand the specific needs of homeless women in the community. The organization has held three drives for donations of all kinds of feminine hygiene products, as well as running a GoFundMe, which to date has received over $880 in donations for products. During these drives, the Ladybugs Movement has collected items like maxi pads, feminine cleansing wipes, hand sanitizer, tissue paper, body wash, shampoo, first aid kits and nail clippers. The group assembled the products into hygiene kits and donated them to the Downtown Women’s Center and the Los Angeles Mission, which specialize in caring for women. To date, the organization has donated more than 1,300 kits.

Arias, the USC graduate student government director of community service, has worked with the Ladybugs Movement nearly since its inception. To her, the value of the organization is in the impact that it is having on both the community and the women of Skid Row.

“Spreading the awareness about the need of hygiene products for homeless women and knowing that I can make a difference makes me happy,” Arias said. “I know the homeless women in L.A. who will receive the hygiene packs will [see] a difference in their health and way of living.”

The Ladybugs Movement is looking to build off its recent successes. Working with the USC Graduate Student Government and the USC Master of Public Health Student Association, the organization held a month-long drive during the month of February at USC for feminine and hygiene products. Within two weeks, the collection boxes were completely filled. On the heels of its success, the Ladybugs Movement is planning to host a kit-making day. They anticipate to make over 2,000 kits in a single day on March 5.

Arellano said that she is proud of the response to the Ladybugs Movement thus far.

“I was nervous and afraid of the backlash,” Arellano said. “Womanhood and menstruation are rarely openly talked about. Therefore, I was afraid that people would judge and be turned away by the sensitivity of these topics. But, to my surprise, my colleagues united. We knew that this was a social and public health issue that needed more recognition and with our knowledge, resources, evidence based approaches [and] connections, we have continued to grow the conversation.”