TDOxOrganicup

Hey everyone, TDO has a very exciting update about a project we worked on over the past couple of months! Throughout September and October, The Dot Org partnered with Organicup (https://www.organicup.com), a menstrual cup company based in Copenhagen, to give menstruators across the University of Michigan campus access to try menstrual cups as a part of the Campus Cup 2020 initiative. With the pandemic still raging, we were super excited at the opportunity to get involved on campus again. TDO strives to reduce the stigma of menstruation as well as increase accessibility to menstrual products and we felt this was a perfect way to do so. Since we could not hold informational meetings or post physical flyers around campus, we turned to social media as being our main communication outlet. Our Eboard diligently worked to reach as many different populations as possible through Facebook groups and Instagram reposts. Our amazing Social Media Director (shoutout to Jenna) made some beautiful graphics for us to post as well. In mid-September we spent an entire week promoting TDOxOrganiCup and people who were interested in receiving a menstrual cup could easily sign up to do so. After our promotional week finished and the cups arrived, TDO planned a safe, socially-distanced menstrual cup pickup at The Diag. It was so much fun to meet some new faces during our pick-up event and also spread the word about The Dot! After all of our efforts, TDO passed out 494 menstrual cups completely free of charge to those who signed up. According to Organicup’s research, these 494 students using their cups would result in 260.832 pads/tampons saved, and therefore, much less environmental waste (wow!). We received so much positive feedback from people who participated in TDOxOrganicup and we were beyond excited to hear their reviews. This collaboration could not have been a success without everyone spreading the word and participating, so I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite comments below:
     “Thank you so much for doing this! The opportunity to get a free organicup really inspired me to finally make the switch from tampons to a menstrual cup. It’s cool to think about how many people will now be using a more sustainable, eco-friendly period product because of this!”
    “Thank you so much! Was such a powerful and moving campaign.”
    “I’m really thankful for this opportunity because I always held off on buying a menstrual cup because of price!”
Partnering with Organicup definitely helped give us at The Dot the little push we needed to creatively fulfill our mission in light of the isolating times we are all experiencing. This event added a some normality to our lives and even allowed us to safely leave our homes for a little bit and focus on TDO’s impact on campus. For pictures and details about TDOxOrganicup, check out our Instagram (@thedotorg), like us on Facebook (@TheDot), and stay tuned for more exciting projects to come!