When Leisha Toory travelled to study at Memorial, she was looking forward to all the things that make an undergraduate’s first year at university exciting: new ideas, new surroundings and new friends.

But shortly after her arrival, the COVID-19 pandemic reached St. John’s. Streets went quiet. Classes went online. And for many international students, isolation became the norm.

Ms. Toory is from Mauritius, an island nation east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Far away from home, and with her new city in lockdown, her social circle dwindled to daily video chats with her family.

While the connection with her family was reassuring, she was still spending much of her time alone.

In the fall of 2020, she was browsing through the Student Volunteer Bureau’s newsletter and saw an opportunity to become an English as a Second Language (ESL) conversation partner. The conversations would take place online, so they were a safe way to meet new people, learn and be helpful.

It was such a positive experience, Ms. Toory began looking for other ways to reach out.

She started volunteering with the Association for New Canadians, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Eastern Health Long Term Care and the St. John’s Farmers’ Market.

At Memorial she led Welcome Week activities and volunteered through Student Life’s Make Midterm Matter and the Student Volunteer Bureau’s Volunteer Incentive Program.

She even started writing about her experiences in online publications to encourage others to volunteer.

Then, through her reading as a political science student, Ms. Toory discovered the issue of period poverty, which refers to a person’s inability to afford menstrual products or gain access to proper facilities to help manage menstrual health.

 

Leisha Toory (BA ’24) started the Period Priority Project in 2022 as a student at Memorial. Photo courtesy Leisha Toory.

 

In Canada, about 17 per cent of people who menstruate have experienced period poverty, often due to the prohibitive cost of menstrual products. The problem is even more pronounced in households with an annual income of $40,000 or less.

With her scholarly research and community connections behind her, Ms. Toory founded the Period Priority Project in May 2022. She started accepting donations of menstrual products and set up a donation box at the farmer’s market. Then she started working with local organizations to deliver the products.

Within the first month, the project had distributed over 2,500 products to 11 shelters in St. John’s and as far away as Nain and Rigolet.

Her efforts made a difference at Memorial, too, as free menstrual product stations started appearing in gender inclusive washrooms on campus. And Ms. Toory started lobbying the provincial government to address menstrual equity across Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Period Priority Project started by changing the local landscape and now works across Canada. It continues to distribute menstrual products, but has expanded to offer educational workshops, campus initiatives, school presentations and an online information resource bank. The project also runs the Period Positivity Podcast.

Ms. Toory won the Student Volunteer Bureau’s David Kirkland Student Leadership Award in 2023. She graduated from Memorial the following year and, in 2025, won the Feminist Creator Prize awarded by the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

As the Period Priority Project nears its third anniversary, it has already distributed over 30,000 menstrual products to people in need.

When Ms. Toory began her volunteer journey back in 2020, she was hoping to make a simple connection. Now she is connected to volunteers across the country and even to people she’s never met.

One anonymous woman sent a note to thank Ms. Toory and to explain that, because of the Period Priority Project’s work, she can now afford to buy snacks for her children’s school lunches. It’s a message that Ms. Toory will never forget.

She receives messages like this and simple acts of kindness and thanks for her work all the time now. “It fills my life with so much joy,” she said.