‘For That Time,’ founded by Calhoun's Ryann Jordan, helps women in poverty across Long Island

It’s really my hope that there’s more light brought to the issue.”

Ryann Jordan, Founder, For That Time

When Ryann Jordan, a senior at Calhoun High School in Merrick, learned that there are countless women who can’t afford or don’t have access to basic necessities, like feminine hygiene products, she quickly sprang into action.

Realizing that something needed to be done, Jordan, 18, founded the organization “For That Time” to address these needs and make a difference in her local community.

Her sister, Lindsay, a student at Cornell University, told her that many women living in poverty across the U.S. struggle to find not only food and other items in pantries, but also hygiene products.

“In one of her classes, she told me that they talked about period poverty, and I hadn’t really heard about it before,” Jordan said. “I looked more into it and noticed that it was like a really big problem in the world, and it wasn’t really being shared, to my knowledge. It wasn’t really a commonly known thing.”

According to the Journal of Global Health Reports, about two-thirds of the 16.9 million low-income women in the U.S. were unable to afford menstrual products in the last year, with half of them reporting they needed to choose between buying hygiene products and food. In addition, 14.2 percent of college-aged women said they experienced period poverty while menstruating in the past year.

“Typically, when thinking about basic needs like food and shelter, the aspect of hygiene is neglected,” Jordan said in January in a press release sent out by the Lutheran Social Services of New York, an organization she works with. “For people who menstruate, period products are a basic need, and if not properly addressed, health concerns could be a possible outcome.”

As a result, Jordan began buying hygiene products and dropping them off at local shelters in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“I wanted to get involved in the issue and help in any way that I could,” she said. “I started making little care packages — I contacted my first shelter and did a drop off there — and I really liked it. So, I continued doing it.”

Jordan now runs “For That Time,” which she founded in December 2021. What she does for local shelters remains simple — she purchases items, sometimes in bulk, from warehouse stores like Costco, and creates packages for shelters in Freeport and Amityville. She assembles each package herself and adds an encouraging message to personalize it for the recipient. 

There’s not an exact age group she’s targeting, she explained — her packages go to anyone in a shelter who may need them.

Her efforts are mostly solo, Jordan added. “I’m mainly purchasing (the products) myself out of funds from my summer job that I had,” she said.

She did recently sent up a PayPal account for the organization, in hopes of getting donations to aid her cause. “My hope is to get donations of period products so that I can continue my efforts and be able to donate a lot more,” she said.

Aside from working with shelters, she partnered with the Lutheran Social Services, and provided them a donation of products for refugees the group aids, at a new sanctuary facility, called the Fortitude House.

“At Lutheran Social Services of New York, we pride ourselves on knowing that you must consider all parts of a person when attempting to understand them and properly provide support,” Rachel Bleecker, the executive director of residential services, stated in the release. “Many low-income women and girls struggle to afford menstrual products, and so we knew this was an important consideration for us to recognize and plan for in supporting the women and girls seeking asylum at our sanctuary facility.”

Jordan said she wants more people to recognize the needs that many women face, in hopes that they’ll offer support to organizations like For That Time.

“It’s really my hope that there’s more light brought to the issue,” she said, “and that I can help — so more people get help.”

To learn more about Jordan’s organization, visit its Instagram page, @4ThatTime. To make a donation to help her purchase more products, visit TinyURL.com/ForThatTime.