Clara Ann Bagnoli ‘28
Design Editor
In collaboration with Scripps Advocates, the Scripps Associated Students (SAS) Senate will be sponsoring the creation of a wellness vending machine in the Student Union. The vending machine is set to be operating by the end of the academic year.
Gabby Daniel ʼ25, the head of the SAS Senate wellness vending machine committee, said the goal of the vending machine is to “improve students’ access to different health and hygiene products.”
Daniel also emphasized that the vending machine’s purpose was not only to provide products but to make them higher quality than what is provided at the dorms and available at a much more affordable price. The machine will be similar to other wellness vending machines at the 5Cs such as the one at the Honnold Mudd library and at Walker Lounge in Pomona.
Health products being sold in the vending machine include heating pads, condoms, dental dams, UTI medications, yeast infection medication, fentanyl testing kits, Advil, menstrual products, and Plan B.
The reduced costs of the products are a way of combating the financial inequity created by the so-called pink tax in feminine hygiene products. The term refers to how corporations price products marketed towards women at a higher cost due to gender-based discrimination, even when they are made from similar materials and address the same hygiene habits as products sold to men. Often, the only difference in these gendered products is the pink color it is made in.
Daniel made the point that although many Scripps students can afford these products, as this is a private institution that gives little aid, it is still important to support students who cannot.
“We understand [Scripps] is kind of in a bubble but we still want to make sure that students who may not have access to these products do,” she said.
According to Daniel, the Scripps Advocates are handling the stocking and maintenance of the machine while SAS Senate is purchasing the machine itself using funding set aside from their annual budget.
The advocates obtained the Plan B for the vending machine by applying for the Plan B One-Step Emergency Contraception Donation Initiative, which provides tablets free of charge to clinics, non-profits, and advocacy organizations.
Scripps Advocate Lucy Blumling ’25 believed that distribution of Plan B was important to community building.
“These past two years the advocates have been trying to focus on creating community resources and so although Plan B may not correlate to our main mission it does support our ongoing goals to foster a community that is sex positive and promotes sexual wellness through equitable access,” Blumling said. “[And] it is important for the tablets to be available if the situation arises where a survivor may need to take one.”
The Advocates’ main role on campus is to supply resources for survivors of sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence/intimate partner violence, and stalking.
Because Advocates got the tablets through a donation, there are regulations on how it can be stored. Instead of being placed in the vending machine itself, the tablets are being kept in a lockbox near the machine with a code that can be accessed through their immediate needs form.
This can be accessed on the lockbox itself and on the Advocates instagram: @scrippsadvocates. For non time sensitive needs, students can fill out a separate form to discreetly receive Plan B in the requester’s mailbox in one to seven days.
If there are any feelings of discomfort with the purchasing or using of the vending machine, there will be a privacy screen installed as well to make the area in the Student Union its own space and away from any potential onlookers.
Scripps Advocates ask students to be mindful as the supplied Plan B is a shared community resource and meant for those who cannot physically or financially access the medication. While the advocates have enough Plan B for the end of the year, those who are in a circumstance to pay for the tablet themselves can do so for $10, a fifth of its regular price, at Student Health Services.
The Scripps Reproductive Justice Club has a similar Plan B distribution program but is not associated with Scripps Advocates or the vending machine.
There is currently no hard deadline for the vending machine to be set up but it will be installed in the next two to three weeks. In the meantime, the Plan B lockbox is fully stocked and ready for anyone who may need it.
