Path and Green provides hygiene kits to Lorain County students

AMHERST — By the end of the school year, local nonprofit Path & Green plans to have distributed 3,800 hygiene kits to students throughout Lorain County. Founder Sarah Yoder and volunteer Linda Bodjiak took the first step toward that goal with a delivery of 300 kits to Amherst's Walter G. Nord Middle School on Friday. The nonprofit, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary in April, started as a resource for young women by providing menstrual and hygiene products to high schoolers. It has since expanded to kits for children in fifth grade and above and added hygiene items for boys as well. On Friday, she and Bodjiak unloaded moving boxes of items destined for Nord's fifth graders after they attend a puberty class next week. Counselor Chandler Kremer said this is the school's second year partnering with Path & Green. She recognized that while the puberty "talk" can be awkward for the 10-and-11-year-olds in the school, having the hygiene kits to give them can break some of the tension around the subject while supporting students and their families. "They all receive it, so it makes it feel like you're not singling out (anyone)," Kremer said of the kits. Path & Green started its hygiene program to help low-income families and girls by providing monthly menstrual supplies alongside personal hygiene and "luxury" care items like lip balm or nail files. Students participating in the organizations personal care bag program at the high school level, or essential care bag program at the middle school level, are able to customize orders for items they need, with products delivered directly to the participating school. The hygiene kits for fifth-graders are given to every student once they complete their school's puberty curriculum, regardless of household income. The nonprofit's goal for its fifth year is to give 1,900 girls and 1,900 boys in Lorain County hygiene kits. Yoder has partnerships with every public school in the county, alongside several charter and parochial schools to provide soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant and menstrual items. Each kit also contains an encouragement card Yoder started Path & Green in 2021 after she and her daughter watched a TikTok video of a church in Oregon that provided personal care items, alongside clothing, jewelry and makeup, to girls in need. Yoder's goal is to tackle "period poverty" countywide — when a student has to miss days of school because they're on their menstrual cycle and lack supplies. A partnership with UPS and The WASH Foundation and United Way of Greater Lorain County allowed Yoder to add on the kits for boys this year, and a relationship with Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio provided deodorants to girls and boys. "We believe that every girls and boys puberty journey should start on a positive note and in order to do that, they need to be educated and prepared," she said. Yoder also partners with Change the Cycle through the Women's Fund at the Community Foundation of Lorain County. The initiative looks to solve the lack of access to affordable feminine hygiene products for women and teens, noting that 1 in 5 girls in the country miss school due to their period and nearly half of all low-income women have to choose between buying food or hygiene supplies. The Change the Cycle program is where Path & Green get many of its core supplies — like the menstrual pads that go in each hygiene kit and personal care bag, which is the larger bag for older students. By the end of the school year, Path & Green will have served more than 6,100 girls in Lorain County over the past five years, Yoder said. Those wishing to help pack personal care and hygiene kits, or to donate money or supplies, can contact Yoder at pathandgreen@gmail.com. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.