2020 was… a year. We’re thankful to be on the other side of it now — a little older, a lot wiser, and grateful to still be helping people get the period products they need.

In 2020, we had planned to increase our staff volunteer hours and better monitor the impact of our donations and educational workshops to ensure they are effective. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our plans were altered. Instead, we focused on increasing giving, particularly locally, and focusing our giving on groups that are led by or primarily benefit BIPOC individuals.

With support from our customers and community partners, GladRags donated over $15,000 in combined cash and in-kind donations in 2020. We donated a portion of GladRags.com sales to Black Voters Matter, the Black Resilience Fund, and southern Oregon Wildfire relief funds. Various reusable menstrual products were given to Warm Springs Reservation wildfire aid, Island Girl Power, and Brown Girl Rise. With the pandemic taking its toll on frontline workers, it was important to us to reach out and provide products to workers in our community, including Wapato Island Farms, Planned Parenthood, Natural Grocers, New Seasons, Growing Seeds Worker's Union, and Meals4Heels.

With grant funding from Prosper Portland’s Inspiring Diversity program, GladRags was able to hire a local, woman-owned Latinx firm to assist us in better serving the needs of the Latinx community in the Pacific Northwest region. Muchas gracías to the many Latinx individuals who shared their opinions with us throughout this project.

By continuing to share our fabric scraps with crafters, quilters, and artists of all kinds, we diverted 100% of our manufacturing “waste” from the landfill again this year!

GladRags invested in our local community by spending 87% of our purchasing dollars at locally-owned businesses within 20 miles of our office in Portland, Oregon.

In 2020, with the help of our college partners, GladRags distributed cloth pads, menstrual cups, and pantyliners to over 1,000 students nationwide at no cost to the student. Period poverty is a real issue facing 1 in 10 college-aged menstruators every month. In 2021, we plan to expand our efforts to provide no- or low-cost reusable products to students and others in need.

In our third re-certification in 2019, GladRags earned 100.5 points on the B Impact Assessment administered by the non-profit certifying agency B Lab. We choose certification through B Lab because their rigorous assessment is continuously updated to ensure that it remains relevant in an ever-changing world. In this assessment GladRags was proud to achieve particularly high scores in the areas of ethics and transparency, worker
engagement and satisfaction, supply chain management, and resource conservation.