The Happy Tampers at DU

Have you ever started your period randomly during the day? Because you cannot know for sure when it will start, you can only know approximately what day you will be starting? Because the only cues you get from your body are cramps? Do you ever worry about the cost of feminine products? Do you sometimes have to buy cardboard applicators because you are in a financial bind right now from buying that text book you needed? Well, you need fear no more, for the Happy Tampers are here! The Happy Tampers recently started their initiative after researching how to provide free feminine care to our students on campus.

Well the idea first came about at the end of last year. I (JJ) was in a leadership class where me and my peers had to form groups and do work with organizations in the Denver area. One of the groups in my class decided to collect tampons to donate to homeless shelters. I thought that this was an awesome idea, and after learning a bit more about feminine hygiene products, I started to realize how expensive they were and how inaccessible they may be for some people. I realized that these products are necessary, and they should be available for students. That was the start of our task force. 

I had recently become a Senator on USG, and I figured that it would be a great platform to start off this project. I’m an RA and Grace, who happens to be one of my resident’s, was elected to USG as a freshman in the fall and immediately fell in love with this idea and this project as much as I was. Over the course of the year, I conducted some research to determine how interested DU students were and if there was a need. When we found out there was, Grace and I worked together to obtain funding through USG and formed our task force.  

Grace was the one who originally decided that we should start by providing products in bathrooms. She figured that this would be something that would not only be doable, but establish our credibility and awareness of what we wanted to do. We formed our task force initially with just our friends who we felt like would be interested and work hard. Grace’s roommate, who is also on the task force, came up with the term “Happy Tampers” after we decided that “Feminine Hygiene Product Task Force” was a bit of a mouthful. I was originally a bit weary of the name, but after overwhelmingly positive feedback from our task force, we decided that it would be a great name for our team.

Why do you feel the need to provide feminine care to DU students? 

We both recognized that more than anything else, we felt like it is essential to help DU students succeed and meet the needs of DU students. We both truly believe and feel like having these products are necessary for DU students to succeed and truly thrive. Feminine hygiene products are too essential to cost as much as they do and to be taxed as much as they are. Plus, DU students are so busy with being college students that we realized that we were in a position where we could do something about it. Especially considering that students can purchase condoms around campus for just quarters and pick them up for free at the HCC, we realized that creating access to these products was the least we could do.

Additionally, we have been working hard over the last year to ensure that what we were doing was very purposeful, and that we weren’t doing something just for the sake of doing it. That is why doing research and surveying our peers was important. We reached out to Brown University, who is also doing something very similar too. Grace and I had a lot of meetings to ensure that we were being very purposeful. That is why we have ensured that these products would be available for students and for free. 

About three weeks ago, we started putting our baskets around campus. Currently, we are in every academic building on campus in at least one bathroom. We have one on every floor of Sturm and the Library and of the 2nd and 1st floors of Driscoll North. We are also in various gender neutral bathrooms around campus as well. We figured that we would be able to fill the bathrooms weekly. However, we have been getting so many texts from people (from our signs) from all over campus. We are basically refilling 2-3 bathrooms a day. Especially bathrooms in the library and Sturm we try to refill daily. Nevertheless, we have been so excited about how well received they have been and the positive feedback we have gotten!

Is there a way for students to donate throughout the year monetarily or with feminine products? 

As mentioned, we are currently funded by USG and will be thankfully, funded by them next year as well. Our task force has always stood firm in the fact that we will do what we can to provide these products for DU students, and we are not going to worry about the finances, as long as we do our part to help our peers. We aren’t a non-profit, so we aren’t currently looking for any sort of donations. We have the funding, and we are wanting to provide them for our peers and not the other way around. However, we are always looking for more people to join our task force (as described below)!

Do you have any social media?

We currently do not have any form of social media (though we might in the future), but you can always contact us through via email happytampers@gmail.com, or by text (720) 598-2704. 

We are always looking for more tampers, so please just email us and we would love to have you join! We want to ensure that the Happy Tampers and access to feminine hygiene products is something that can happen here at DU for many years to come. 

Where are Happy Tampers now, and what are the plans for the future?

We would like to get into more bathrooms, and probably start putting more bins in some of the more popular buildings on campus. As we continue to grow, we would like to put more baskets on more floors, more gender-neutral bathrooms, and male bathrooms on campus as well. While we are very proud of where we are, we are still very much interested in growing the Happy Tampers around campus.

In the end, we would love to start providing these products by the box in the HCC. Our vision is that feminine hygiene products will be available in the same sort of array that you might see at King Soopers or Safeway, but ALL for free. We truly do stand behind the fact that we would like to ensure that these products are free for DU personnel and we will continue to work towards that goal.

We believe that right now, we are not only meeting a need for DU students here, but also showing that we truly do care about the well-being of DU students. And as we see it, starting in bathrooms is how we are establishing our credibility and our care for our school. We hope to continue to grow and establish DU as an institution that makes feminine hygiene products accessible for all, regardless.

photo by JJ Khan