Our Programs
Path & Green started in 2021, and we began serving girls in need during the 2nd semester of the 2021-2022 school year. We partner with local schools and community-service organizations to provide three free programs that meet girls’ basic hygiene needs with dignity and care. Learn more about our three programs below.
Personal Care Bag Program
Once per semester, high school girls in need* can confidentially request up to 14 personal care items—including shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body lotion, deodorant, face wash, and oral care products including toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, and lip balm—along with four months’ worth of menstrual pads or tampons or a menstrual cup. Each order is customized to the student’s hair and skin type, includes two luxury items, an encouragement card, and a mint to remind her she is worthy, loved, and valued. All orders are hand delivered to students at their high school, thereby eliminating a lack of access to obtaining hygiene products needed.
*Need is based on the qualification of the free or reduced lunch program.
Essential Care Bag Program
This program is targeted for girls in need* in 6th-8th grade. This streamlined option offers eight essential hygiene products, including shampoo, conditioner, a bar of soap, deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and lip balm, plus four months of menstrual products, with the same personalization and uplifting touches as our Personal Care Bags. This program was piloted at Amherst Junior High School last school year. We hope to expand this program to more middle schools as funding allows.
*Need is based on qualification of the free or reduced lunch program.
Scroll below to read a beautiful poem about what our clients may experience on a daily basis without our programs.
Hygiene Kit Bag Program
This program is designed to help every girl, regardless of her income level, start her puberty journey on a positive note by being prepared and educated. These kits provide soap, deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, menstrual pads, and an educational brochure along with a period bag for their backpack, a luxury item, and an encouragement note. These bags are primarily given to 5th-grade girls who have recently completed their school’s puberty curriculum. We also provide these kits on a limited basis, upon request, to other grade levels to promote and support good hygiene practices.
90% of our clients would run out of hygiene items if not for Path & Green.
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90% of our clients would run out of hygiene items if not for Path & Green. 〰️
Clean is a Kind of Dignity
Written By: Naya Reed-Martin
Former recipient of Path & Green
In the quiet of the morning, before the world awakes,
She folds her hands and prays the shame will break.
Soap, a luxury. Deodorant, a dream.
Toothpaste is rationed like a war-time scheme.
The mirror reflects not just her face,
But the burden of poverty, hard to erase.
In locker rooms, whispers float like air,
“She smells again,” as if she weren’t there.
Clean is not just comfort it’s a shield, a skin,
A line between being welcome or shut in.
A child too young should not have to learn
That hygiene has a price she cannot earn.
But then a box, a bag, a knock at the door,
Not charity, but dignity, restored once more.
From hands that care, not pity or pride,
A program stands where shame used to hide.
A toothbrush offered without a sneer,
A bar of soap saying, “You matter here.”
Tampons, mouthwash, shampoo, pads
Hope can come in paper bags.
For what is clean but a kind of grace,
A way to feel human, to take up space?
Not lesser, not dirty, not brushed aside,
But worthy, with heads held high in stride.
To those who give without a name,
You fight the filth of stigma and shame.
You see the soul beneath the grime,
And remind the world: “They’re worth the time.”
So may these acts keep rising like the sun
Until clean is free, for everyone.
Not just for the rich, not just a few