Vision For Vending

Vision For Vending is a organization that uses vending machines as dispensers for personal health, hygiene, and medical products to combat period poverty and homeless / lower income inaccessibility.

Our solution is to use the existing technology of vending machines and repurpose them as dispensers of products such as pads, tampons, menstrual cups, razors, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, hand sanitizer, deodorant, diapers, pregnancy tests, etc. We will establish our vending machine in target locations for homeless and low income  accessibility as well as structure our business model in a way that allows for these minorities to access these products for free.

Vision For Vending is striving to solve the issues surrounding health inaccessibility mainly faced by the homeless and lower income communities, as well as period poverty a problem faced by menstruating women especially in lower income communities. We discovered that homeless and lower income communities often have to choose between meals and personal health necessities. Many unable to afford personal health necessities cope with unhealthy substitutions or hygienic practices leading to infections, diseases, and death. In addition to this, Globally, an estimated 500 million people who menstruate lack access to menstrual products (MedicalNewsToday). 1 out of every 10 menstruating youth misses school during their menstrual cycle due to lack of access to menstrual products.The lack of access to menstrual health products for people who are either homeless or low-income is appalling.This is mainly due to the cost of health, hygiene, and medical products. 

Our solution serves just about anyone at anytime. Our target population however is the homeless and lower income community including menstruating women. They are underserved in numerous ways mainly due to their lower income or even no income. Although shelters and various organizations attempt to provide these necessities. It is important to note that not all homeless live in shelters nor can organizations reach the mass lower income population. Additionally, handing donations out can build a sense of reliance on others to take care of oneself and lower self worth. This can be prevented with a A method of distribution to connect the gap between personal health necessities and those in need, provide easy access to the homeless and lower income communities so they can help themselves at anytime and anywhere for free. Vision For Vending can do just that and addresses their personal health needs all through a vending machine. With access to personal health necessities millions can live with proper hygienic practices, be considered for jobs, and have access to products they weren't able to afford initially.

We have researched data and statistics about the homeless, lower income communities, and period poverty. We identified the root cause and the effect of the lack of personal health necessities. Additionally, we are in the stage of exploring our idea for its numerous possibilities and building a business model to help us achieve our goal.

The stage of development selected is accurate because we are still a concept yet to develop a prototype. We are exploring idea to discover more possibilities and potential. We have built a business model which we are revising.

Our core technology is vending machines. We will repurpose and rebrand existing vending machines for our cause.

We plan of serving approximately 10, 000 indivisuals in the next year.

Our impact goals for the next year are to survey and see increased percentages of homeless and lower income individuals that now have access to personal health necessities.

We will measure our solution's progress and impact through surveying our target population to see the effect of our vending machines branching out.

Barriers that currently exist is our need for financial support around $5,000 - $10,000 to attain vending machines and further development.

Our team was formed over our compassion for those in need. We have various skills that can help us futher our idea. As well as experience working with many organizations striving to solve world problems. We listen to each others input and ideas and implement our skills where we can best benefit Vision For Vending.

We plan on reaching out to countless organizations with a similar mission and partnering with them to dispense donated products through our vending machines.

We are qualified for the HP Girls Save the World Prize because we reuse and repurpose old vending machines preventing them from accumulating on landfills. We will use the HP Girls Save the World Prize to fund for our intial stage expenses.

We qualify for The Pozen Social Innovation Prize due the eleemnts of our idea additonally being a social innovation. We will use the prize to intiate our idea.