San Jose teens create nonprofit Code Red to fight period poverty, homelessness

Not everyone has access to the basics, but two incoming high school juniors from San Jose are trying to change that.

Campbell resident Anjani Nabar and San Jose resident Sameet Das, both students at Mitty High School in Willow Glen, founded the nonprofit Code Red to support people facing both period poverty and homelessness by providing them with hygiene kits filled with essentials like toiletries, socks and feminine care products.

“I went to Berkeley last summer and I saw a lot of people on the streets without homes, and that kind of stuck with me and I wanted to help them and create an impact in my society and community that may have not existed before,” Sameet said.

So far, Code Red has donated 136 hygiene kits, raised $510 and donated more than 1,000 hygiene products. Their latest endeavor is a donation drive at the Saratoga Library. The library is taking donations of supplies like pads and tampons, socks and hand sanitizer for Code Red through the end of July.

“Being a woman myself, I kind of know what it’s like to be in a situation where you don’t have the products that you need to help you with your period,” Anjani said. “And I noticed that at my middle school, they didn’t have a dispenser for you if you didn’t have those products, and I also noticed that my school had a lot of low income students. So I was wondering what those low income students would do when they had their periods.”

The pair established their nonprofit last summer after meeting in Mitty’s business club. After learning about their shared values and interests, they got to work and have been fundraising and hosting donation drives.

The two students say their Indian heritage informed their nonprofit.

“In Indian culture generally, helping others is a really big thing,” Sameet said. “Everybody that we meet – friends and family – they’re all family; they’re all really close to us.”

They asked organizations that work with low-income and homeless individuals what they should include in their hygiene kits and learned that socks are often forgotten in the donation cycles.