The Homeless Period Project || Sharron Champion

I had the privilege of sitting down with Upstate native Sharron Champion, co-founder behind The Homeless Period Project, and chat about her inspiring story.

At an early age Sharron felt like she had a calling to be a positive force of good in the world. “At nine I wouldn’t have known how to verbalize it, but I knew God was going to use me,” she said.

In college she made some “consequential choices that I felt took me off my ‘path.’ By the time I was in my 30’s I felt I had missed out on my calling because of those choices.” Despite her business degree, she didn’t have a set career path. But, around 40, her confidence from 9 years old started coming back. “I realized who I am and what my identity is.”

One day Sharron’s sister-in-law forwarded her an article about homeless women in the UK — it touched on their lack of access to period products.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Sharron said.

That article changed her life forever.

She called several different organizations around Greenville that worked with the homeless. After speaking with staff from those different organizations she discovered that homeless women in her own community were experiencing the same issues: a lack of access to feminine hygiene products.

“We found out there was a struggle. We decided to have a ‘period party’ to help raise awareness to this issue. The idea was to get folks who donated to include these products the next time they made a donation.”

Much to her surprise, someone asked Sharron when the next period party was. That person then ended up hosting their own party the next month. Even more products were raised/donated and a snowball effect took place as more period parties start popping up each month.

One year later, The Homeless Period Project was a registered 501c3.

“I realized that this was what I was supposed to do,” Sharron told me. “I found my passion. Even though I’m the co-founder, I like to say that the project found me. It grew like ivy and I followed it. I finally found my worth.”

Six years later, The Homeless Period Project is providing feminine hygiene products to women in need from places like schools, prisons, immigrants being held at the border, and even a Native American reservation that desperately needed products.

Just recently, Stay Free, a feminine hygiene product company, found The Homeless Period Project through a tweet and promptly donated 100,000 hygiene products.

The very first Period Party

In 2020 supporters of The Homeless Period Project had to get a little more creative with their parties by going virtual. And, despite the pandemic, THPP has been able to maintain steady donations. “Our biggest challenge,” Sharron said, “wasn’t the products, it was that we are totally volunteer based and everyone went into quarantine — and we needed to get the products out.” Food banks, shelters, and schools shut down, but they were able to partner with United Way to find open community centers that could help them get the products out there.

Today The Homeless Period Project has several chapters and have even more people that they work with in other cities and states.

“I’ve met some beautiful souls through this project that played part in starting a worldwide movement,” Sharron said. “Who would have thought tampons and pads would make me so happy?”

She continued, “I would love for the Greenville community to know how appreciative we are. The community came in behind us and really supported this project and still does to this day. Greenville donations help a big portion of South Carolina and we get enough product donations to spread to other counties.”

This June will be The Homeless Period Project’s 6th year — to date, all period parties have been hosted at the initiative of passionate supporters. The Hopeless Period Project hasn’t had to turn away any woman in need, even during a global pandemic. If you’d like to get involved in their incredible work visit www.homelessperiodproject.org to learn more.