Site Visit to Family Planning

Hi guys, this is just a quick additional post about the site visit that I made to Family Planning with Jen last Friday, since we didn’t have time to talk about it in class today. We visited the center downtown to find out more about their organization and what they did with the $2,500 grant our class gave them last year. When we got there, they had just set up a new, medical refrigerator for their HPV vaccines, to replace their old household fridge which could not reliably keep the vaccines safe (they actually had to send a batch back to the manufacturer). They bought the new fridge with a grant from another organization.

 They needed the grant last year because the government funding for condoms was cut. Luckily, funding has now been restored. Last year, they used the $2,500 to buy 29,000 condoms. Since they’re a nonprofit, they get a substantial discount.

They distributed the condoms at several of their centers, including the one in Sidney. Condoms are really important because many of the people who go to the center don’t have access to any other means of birth control. Many of them don’t have insurance or a primary physician. We talked to the director of fundraising (who’ll be coming to our class on Thursday) and four educators (all of whom were super friendly and approachable) and they told us about how they make sure each person who comes in has access to condoms and how they foster conversations about other methods of birth control and safe sex. They also give condoms to school nurse's offices, which are often so low on condoms that they'll only give out one at a time. They told us that it's really important for youth in particular to have an anonymous way of getting condoms, because in a small community like Sidney, the cashier might be a peer or someone who knows your parent. 

Another thing they mentioned that struck us as important for our class to know is that people often find out that the center offers condoms through word-of-mouth. We took this to mean that if people learn about the center primarily through what they hear from others, they might hear that the Sidney building is not in the best shape. That might make them think that the center offers sub-par care.

I’m really looking forward to learning more about their organization this Thursday.