Let me give you a little back story on who I am and why I am such a huge supporter and advocate for the DivaCup.
I have been mountaineering, backpacking and climbing for over 15 years. I spent four winters living in a snow cave, and I now live in a school bus parked by a river in remote Alaska. I spend most of my time outside living and breathing the wild air that Alaska gives us locals. I am a mountain woman. I have traversed Alaskan Ice Caps and traveled over countless glaciers. There is no other place than this one that allows me to be my absolute best self. I love taking care of the land that provides me with opportunity. This includes everything from minimizing my waste, being conscious of my carbon footprint and treading lightly as I move through this world.
I started a campaign in 2008 with a lovely female musician named Teri. We call it the Carry Your Cup campaign. This campaign came about to simply spread the word about minimizing each person’s carbon footprint. If we could educate people about how many disposable coffee cups are being wasted on a daily basis, we could potentially save the world one cup at a time! Our goal was to get people to think about how many cups they were wasting on a day to day basis by using disposable products!
This inspired me to think more and more about how I can be a better person by minimizing even more of my waste. This is when I made the personal switch to the DivaCup. Instead of spending money on tampons and pads (which adds up to an amount that I cannot even afford as an Outdoor Educator) I spent money one time on the DivaCup. But the money saved here is a bi-product of the most important benefit, which is the Environment! Think about how much waste you create with each tampon or pad every single day, every single week, every single period in a year. That’s a lot of waste! And now think about where that goes. Do you put your used tampons in the trash? Or flush them down the toilet? Really sit and think about where this used product is going… Eye opening, isn’t it. Because I imagine most of you don’t even know.
These products are harmful to the environment and on a smaller, more localized scale, they are harmful to our bodies. I made the switch to the DivaCup and I will never turn back. I am saving the world multiple cups at a time now and am very proud of myself.
So all because the impact the DivaCup had on me personally and how I look at my cycles now, I was incredibly excited to share the product with many other women. I have been hosting a women’s ski/snowboard retreat for five years now. This camp occurs in mid March outside of Haines, Alaska and it’s called Snow Sisters. This is an experience of a lifetime. Fifteen women come from all over the world to ski lines they’ve only dreamt about. We practice daily yoga, eat mostly Alaskan seafood, heli ski and snowboard, go boating on the ocean, ski tour, hot tub, and most importantly push each other to be our best selves. This is a community of women who I ask to bring something to gift the other ladies that show up. A gift of knowledge, a craft, or maybe something that inspires them. It can be anything really. One of the things that I shared with the women was the DivaCup! Out of fifteen women, only three had heard about it but they hadn’t tried it yet. And I absolutely knew that this women’s retreat was the perfect place to introduce fifteen mountain women to a life changing product. After sitting down for fifteen minutes and having a group conversation about the DivaCup, every single woman that attended now happily has one. Even our female heli pilot uses a DivaCup now!
For me, the DivaCup has made moving in the mountains simpler, cleaner and just easier in general because now I don’t have to pack out my period waste. And I now get to contribute my power source blood back into the Earth where it belongs. No waste, better planet.
