Period Poverty and How We’re Going to Help
Period poverty affects millions of people in the US, causing serious financial and social ramifications. This Cadet Girl Scout project addresses that issue. Pittsburgh Modern Quilt Guild members are volunteering to sew for this project.
Cadet Scout Lillie with her sample reusable menstrual pads.
PGHMQG has been invited to sew for this Silver Award community service project.
Period poverty is an issue that affects many women around the world, including right here in the Pittsburgh area. Cadet Scout Lillie is completing her Silver Award project on the challenges of participating in society due to unequal access to menstruation resources. Her project is more than simple community service. This is a true service learning project, where the project creator educates the community about the topic they studied, and then conducts a service project recruiting volunteers to participate in its completion. The Silver Award is the second highest award achievable as a Girl Scout. Only the Gold Award is more prestigious, and more involved.
She gave her first presentation on Period Action Day. She educated our guild in January on the ubiquitous nature of menstruation and the far-reaching impact of Period Poverty. Period poverty is the term that encompasses lack of access to information and material resources and the detrimental effect this has on a person and society.
Lillie showing the project components to members at the January meeting
More than 2 million women and girls in the state of Pennsylvania are in the main age range of menstruation. One in seven are below the poverty level. This puts an estimated 285,000 at a serious disadvantage in work, school, and life when it comes to affording menstrual products and the losses they experience as a result. All of these issues are compounded by lack of education and understanding in all of society. In spite of the mundane nature of menstruation, it is stigmatized to the point that the subject is taboo and people feel shame for it. This stigma ends up being discriminatory among society at large and dangerous to those experiencing menstruation without the information to safely manage it.
Only 21 states have a tax exemption for menstrual products. It is not covered by Medicaid, because it has been deemed non-essential. The average woman will spent $18,000 on menstrual products over the course of her life.
Period poverty impacts people in the areas of Physical Health, Mental Health, Education, Financial Stability, Inclusion, and Human Rights. Using period products for longer than the recommended time can result in irritation, rashes, yeast and bacterial infections, and Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS). The insecurity from not having adequate products or information can result in embarrassment, stress, isolation, loss of confidence, and other mental health risk factors associated with increased vulnerability. Girls without period products can face lower academic performance, loss of opportunities, and truancy prosecution as a result of missing school. Women may have to choose between period products and other basic necessities. Women without period products can miss work and suffer from similar ramifications as girls missing school, coupled with the potential loss of income. Anyone experiencing medical complications from using products in excess of the recommended time also have the financial burden of medical costs. When anyone has to miss work, school, or events from lack of period products, they also miss opportunities for inclusion; society misses out on the benefits of an inclusive society when any group is excluded. The UN declares participation in society and education as basic human rights, which cannot be fulfilled when menstrual product deficiencies keep them from participating in daily life.
Members can view all of Lillie’s slides from the presentation to our guild in the members only page of the website.
Lillie’s service project is to create reusable menstrual pads for the Southwestern PA Community. She is using the Days for Girls reusable pad pattern. She is supplying the materials for these pads. Her call to action is for people to help sew these pads. If you would like to participate in this service project and do community sewing, you can pick up materials to use at our March Sew Day. We’ll be there all day, so you can sew one or many reusable menstrual pads.
Use the QR code above to get the directions for this community service sewing project.
West View Urban Farm will have the final products available for the community. They have supported other Silver Award projects from this troop.
Guild History - February 2026 Meeting
The history of quilting, modern quilting, the national Modern Quilt Guild, and Pittsburgh Modern Quilt Guild.
New year, new room arrangement.
This was our first meeting trying out new layouts for the space. We moved to the other side of the room and angled the tables so more people could see and be closer to the speaker. We liked being among the members while speaking. We still have some adjustments to make so we’ll keep trying different options until we find the one that works best.
Our first test of the new meeting layout.
For our icebreaker we all got up and moved. We lined up and took a step for each machine we owned, moving forward for variations and backwards for motionless statuses like unthreaded sergers and long-arm quilt racks.
Our machines took us all around the room.
Guild Business
We had 6 new members join our guild, and 5 February membership anniversaries. With the cold weather, there were 19 of us at the meeting in person, but 16 people joined us on zoom.
Our ticket structure is updated with broader opportunities to earn tickets. Check the members only page to see the new ticket list. Since we want to give out many tickets, we also had a surprise ticket opportunity! We gave out tickets to everyone who had on a name tag, with a bonus if it was one you sewed yourself.
Get ready for more surprises at the next meeting. If you want to make your own name badge holder, here is a tutorial from the Coastal Quilters Guild’s April 2023 presentation.
Don’t forget that our Q1 Challenge is the Mulligan! No limits! So finish off those old challenges you never submitted. Try your hand at that challenge you skipped the first time. Go back through the challenge archives and find something you wished you were here for. It’s all fair game if you didn’t already submit it to a show and tell.
Upcoming Meetings and Topics
March: Sew Day
including a call for Scout Project Sewing (see Jan post)
April: All About Charity Quilts
in preparation for the MQG’s release in May
Q2 Challenge: Patriotic - your interpretation
May: No meeting, but Jeni’s is May 4th!
June: Seams Hard To Me
the dreaded y-seam, curved seams, and mitered seams
QuiltCon is this month. Everyone going can meet up there. Check the quiltcon app once it’s available.
The retreat is in May! Get registered now if you want to attend. Payments are due by March 7th. Please make sure you fill out the registration form as well. It’s on the retreat page right before the zeffy payment link.
If you’re submitting an 8” quilt for the Three Rivers show, the labeled quilt is due by the April meeting. Contact Connie at pittsburghmqg@gmail.com if you want instructions. Don’t forget to label your quilt!
Sandy shared the flier for Bayfront Quilt Fest. It’s in Erie in May. Details in events.
Show and Tell
Programming Presentation - Quilting and Guild History
Cheralee presented our program on quilting, modern quilting, and guild history. We got a high-level overview of several thousand years of layers of fabric, sewn together. Quilting has been found all over the world in different formats to suit the needs of the creators.
Our guild started in 2012/2013 just a few short years after the national guild. We met in various spaces around Pittsburgh. The guild started small, as most do. Early meetings had short programs, immediately leading into hands on practice with machines that members brought to every meeting.
The definition of modern quilting has evolved over the years, just as the concept of modern must, by its nature.
PGHMQG has evolved with it, and members can view the slides in the members only area.
Rose discussed the guild retreat and Bernadette explained sew days. Both are great ways our guild gets together to sew and share.
We also included a review of the website. If you don’t routinely check it, remember we post the blog posts that recap our meetings. They are under the Blog menu item and fulfill the same role as a newsletter at other guilds.
We post meeting slides and handouts in the members area. You gain access to this with membership. The password is emailed. Your membership also includes membership in the national guild, and permission to join the private Facebook group. This means you also get early access to register for QuiltCon.
In the members only section you’ll also find links to our bylaws, upcoming events, and the member biographies. Submit your bio for tickets! The archives are linked there as well. If you want to review show and tell photos from previous years, you’ll find them there.
We also post events and announcements in the Facebook group and instagram, as a secondary reminder source.
The main page of the website has a calendar with upcoming events, meetings, leadership meetings, sew days, quilt shows, and QuiltCon. Further descriptions of events and workshops, including sign up information, are under the activities menu.
What’s a Mulligan?
We've received several questions about our new challenge and we wanted to break it down for you.
1) Try any previous challenge with a new, fresh idea, even if you previously completed it. (No limits!)
2) Complete a previous challenge's UFO (never completed or shown at Show & Tell). (No limits!)
We want to recognize any/all efforts so we've set up a sliding scale for the tickets.
Finish an FPP block and decide it's not your thing? Still get a ticket for the block!
Have some Weaving blocks but never assembled them?
Still get 5 tickets for a completed top!
Got your Whole Cloth quilt done, but didn't bind it in time? Still get 10 tickets for finally finishing that UFO!
It's important to get things off your plate. Acknowledging the work we put into stretching our skills and comfort zone is also great for growth as makers. Your fellow guildies can't wait to see what you bring to the next meeting!
**a mulligan is a do-over, famous in golf and Magic the Gathering