Expanding access through innovation

One experience in high school shifted Aanya Patel’s (BSBA Finance ’27) perspective on period equity in the United States.

In the school nurse’s station, Patel overheard a girl ask the nurse for a pad. Her peer was turned away, and she learned from the nurse that the school didn’t have the budget to provide period products for students.

Patel was surprised to learn that dozens of students were turned away weekly.

“My mom is from India and my dad is from Kenya, both from rural villages,” she explained. “I heard how a lot of girls back where they’re from would have to drop out of school due to lack of access to period products.”

However, she was shocked to see that happening in her own neighborhood.

“To think that happens right in front of me in my own school, affecting people I know and my peers around me [was indescribable],” she said. “I wanted to do something about that.”

At the age of 14, Patel started a GoFundMe that she shared with friends and family. In just her inner circle, she was able to raise the funds to donate 1,000 products to her school.

But her success didn’t stop there.

“It got picked up by a local news channel in Tampa, and I got so much support from the whole Tampa Bay Community.”

Her donation drive exploded from just 1,000 products to 50,000 products.

“I was able to partner with the Hillsborough County Public Schools to donate the period products to all of their title one middle and high schools,” she said.

Since then, she’s turned her project into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, dedicated to ending period poverty.

Patel’s nonprofit, Global Girls Initiative, has donated 500,000 menstrual products, impacting 75,000 youth globally since 2020.

With accessibility at the heart of her mission, Patel also worked to make product dispensers available in school bathrooms to save students a trip to the nurse’s station. However, she found that many dispensers were upwards of $1,000 with a low product capacity.

“I worked to innovate our own menstrual product dispenser that is more tailored toward a school environment,” she said.

The dispensers she created are more cost effective for schools and hold upwards of 70 period products, designed for products of all sizes.

“We have installed dispensers in over 75 academic institutions nationally,” she said.

Earlier this year, she switched from the pre-med route to pursuing a degree in finance.

“I switched over to finance [because I plan] to work within the healthcare industry or the nonprofit sector [in a way] that’s going to make a tangible impact within the community.”

Equipped with a degree in finance, she hopes to make an impact sooner.

Patel encourages her peers that might be interested in following a similar path to take a leap.

“Start small,” she said. “If you can make a difference for even just one person, that impact matters and it’ll always be worth starting for.”