If you’ve used the restrooms at any point this semester at FRCC, you’ve no doubt seen EvoGen-branded dispensers by the paper towel dispensers or the different stalls. These dispensers give out free menstrual hygiene products: regular-strength Maxithin-branded pads and Tampax-brand tampons, that is.
These products are offered completely free of charge. Indeed, this is a much pointed-out aspect of the program – it goes to the lengths of covering the coin slot on the dispenser with a piece of plastic that says “Free” in all capital letters. All someone needs to do is to push a labeled button and either a boxed pad or wrapped tampon, depending on the button pressed, dispenses into the slot below the buttons.
Krishna Pattisapu, the Executive Director of Equity and Inclusion at FRCC, explained, “The EvoGen dispensers were installed in order to ensure that FRCC faculty, staff, and students of all gender identities have access to free menstrual hygiene supplies.”
The dispensers, which were installed after the Larimer Campus SGA’s initiative to provide free menstrual products in all restrooms on the Larimer campus, were brought to life as the result of an internal partnership. The dispensers can now be found in nearly every restroom on all of FRCC’s campuses.
“The Division of Equity & Inclusion partnered with the Associate Vice President of Facilities Planning & Management and the Facilities teams on each of our campuses to locate funding for these dispensers and install them,” Pattisapu said.
Mike Baranovic, FRCC’s Director of Facilities, explained that the dispensers and products were “really good deals … through our state awarded vendors.” He also elaborated on these vendors, saying that “We have State bid awarded vendors that we use for custodial supplies. So this somewhat dictates the type of equipment and products that are available to us. Those vendors spec products based on their internal research.”
Baranovic further delved into the cost of providing these products to students.
“A single machine is only a couple hundred dollars and the 1st stocking of supplies is less than $50.00/machine. … The replacement cost [in case of vandalism] would be the same as [the] install cost,” he explained. “The ongoing cost cannot be estimated since we do not have a history of product use in this setting. Just like other consumables, the cost is demand driven.”
He expressed faith in replacements not being a problem for FRCC, describing the dispensers as “fairly robust though. So even if torn down we could just re-hang [them]. They would really need to be abused or terribly defaced in order to be replaced.”
Of Facilities’ role in the dispenser project, he clarified that “Our role on a project like this is to absorb feedback from stakeholders and be there for the end users. The stakeholders were primarily Student Life and Student Affairs. Krishna was the cabinet level sponsor of the project. The end users can be anyone. So we assisted with equipment selection, procurement and installation.”
Pattisapu also said that they knew “[Facilities] conducted research about what other institutions have done, [and] the companies they have worked with.”
“Maintainability is huge since our orders for custodial supplies are rather large,” Baranovic stressed. “So we need to ensure that we can support all of our consumables in perpetuity. So we have to be careful not to spec any products that are too specialized or that do not come from our main vendors.”
“When people have access to the things they need to meet their basic human needs – food, hygiene, housing, community, etc. – we can invest our energy in striving toward our larger goals,” Pattisapu explained of the rationale behind the installation of these dispensers.
They clarified one of these goals, saying “A sense of belonging on campus is directly related to positive educational and career outcomes. This is just one step FRCC has taken to ensure our people have access to what they need to show up as their authentic selves and achieve their goals.”
