Sex and Self Concordia hosts a binder drive at Le Frigo Vert to overcome funding challenges.
The student-run club Sex and Self Concordia has given students free access to wellness products to make safe pleasure and gender-affirming care accessible for the past three years.
The club’s Wellness Pantry at Le Frigo Vert has relied on donations and partnerships to provide resources such as menstrual products, safe sex materials, and gender-affirming items.
Since its launch, the pantry has distributed hundreds of wellness items, reflecting the community’s commitment to solidarity. Monthly donations typically include 300 menstrual products, 200 condoms, and 50 to 100 pregnancy and ovulation tests from brands like joni, Bellesa Boutique, Ovry and Uberlube,
The pantry is hosting a binder drive at Le Frigo Vert until Nov. 26 and will be accepting donations year-round. This drive aims to substitute the previous support of the gc2b charity program, which supplied returned binders. The program suspended operations due to a lack of returned binders.
“Binders are a luxury item. […] Buying a binder is not feasible for many people, let alone returning them,” said Cameron Brunet, pantry director at Sex and Self.
After losing the gc2b sponsorship, the pantry now depends on smaller donations from other organizations, ranging from five to 50 items per donation. Although it allows operations to continue, it emphasizes the need for more sustainable funding, which the pantry hopes to obtain by applying for grants.
The club has hosted events to bring more money and redistribute it into the pantry and has also considered crowdsourcing. However, Brunet hopes to find another source of income for the pantry.
“We don’t have to ask from the community that we’re serving for them to fund us because, in my heart, it feels like it defeats the purpose,” they said.
Le Frigo Vert provides space and storage for the pantry, which is essential for its operations. Their support has been crucial for the pantry’s success, said Brunet.
“It needs to be here. Where else can it be?” said Donald Armstrong, a member of the Frigo Vert collective. “We’re Frigo Vert. It just fits with supporting people that need support.”
The influx of individuals who came to Le Frigo Vert needing help accessing the pantry’s products surprised Armstrong.
“They couldn’t be the person they’re meant to be because they couldn’t afford it or didn’t know how to source it,” he said. “That’s so scary to me.”
“These things are so hard to just buy on your own because it’s not easily accessible for anyone,” pantry user Evangeline Taguba said. “These things are important because they make trans people’s lives or queer people’s lives easier, and just anyone’s lives easier.”
Taguba got to her first pair of tucking panties at the Wellness pantry, provided by Tuckituppp.
“Wearing my tucking panties out for the first time, it was euphoric. It was a very gender-euphoric feeling for me,” she said.
Brunet shared that they ran into many individuals who told them they were grateful for the pantry because their parents threw away their sex toys or because they lost their products in an apartment fire.
“[They] just wanted to feel good again,” Brunet said. “It feels good to be a reliable resource.”
Despite the lack of funding and the loss of sponsors, they are still proud of the support they have provided.
“Some kind of a pantry rather than no pantry is still a success,” Brunet said.
