Impacting Tomorrow expands period product program to more local schools

A Loveland nonprofit is expanding a program that provides free feminine hygiene products to students across Greater Cincinnati, aiming to remove barriers to school attendance and learning.

Impacting Tomorrow’s Carry Her program aims to address period poverty, which can make it difficult for students to attend school when they lack access to menstrual health products. It began as a pilot serving 42 students in Lockland School District and 40 at Cincinnati Public Schools’ Hughes High School, with support from a Greater Cincinnati Foundation grant. CPS received its first delivery Sept. 30.

The program has since expanded to serve students at 22 CPS schools as well as the Lockland and Milford school districts. Impacting Tomorrow is also finalizing its first delivery to West Clermont School District.

“Every student deserves the opportunity to walk into school feeling confident, prepared and ready to learn,” said Ken Tracy, who co-founded Impacting Tomorrow with his wife, Libby. “Something as basic as access to feminine care products should never determine whether a young woman attends class or misses an opportunity to succeed.”

Removing that barrier is also important to schools working to improve attendance and academic achievement, said Shauna Murphy, superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools.

“Student attendance and academic achievement are closely connected, and we know that removing barriers to learning is essential to helping every student succeed,” Murphy said. “Carry Her provides practical support while reinforcing an important message to our students: their health, dignity and education matter.”

Providing for basic human needs

Impacting Tomorrow provides food, clothing, health care, education and other resources to families through its community campus in Loveland. The nonprofit served more than 200,000 people in 2025, providing $12.3 million in groceries and distributing more than 1 million diapers and 500,000 feminine care products, according to the organization.

Impacting Tomorrow plans to track attendance, student confidence and educational engagement to evaluate Carry Her’s impact. The nonprofit also will work with participating schools to promote age-appropriate education about menstrual health.

The organization hopes to use the findings to develop a model that can expand to other communities in Ohio and eventually across the country.

“Our vision is to build a model here in Greater Cincinnati that can ultimately benefit students across the country,” Tracy said.