We often talk about the glass ceiling in business, but what if the true barrier to a woman’s full potential starts much lower—at the most basic level of her health and healthcare access? Imagine trying to lead a meeting, ace an exam, or secure funding when you can’t access essential menstrual products. This is the reality of “period poverty,” a silent struggle that affects millions and is rooted in shame and lack of access.
In this powerful conversation, we dive deep with Avery Bruen and Brooke Blankenship, the dynamic young founders of EmpowerHer. They started their mission in high school, tackling period poverty head-on by providing quality products and crucial education to underserved communities. Discover why access to period products is fundamentally a leadership and equity issue, not just a side note. Avery and Brooke share their journey—from neighborhood drives to a thriving organization serving over 11,000 students—and reveal the business savvy, resilience, and intergenerational wisdom required to build a mission-driven movement from the ground up.
If you’ve ever wondered how small, practical interventions can unlock enormous change and shatter assumptions, don’t miss this episode. Their story is a powerful metaphor for overcoming any professional obstacle.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
The Power Of The Period: Healthcare Access And Ending Shame With EmpowerHer Founder Avery Bruen And VP Brooke Blankenship
We talk a lot about empowering women and overcoming the lack of self-confidence in business. Have we ever thought to consider that perhaps the root cause runs a whole lot deeper and can be attributed to something seemingly not related at all? It’s hard to lead, learn, or fully show up when your most basic health needs aren’t being met and no one wants to talk about it. Significant shame.
That’s why I’m so glad to be joined by two young founders and officers, Avery Bruen and Brooke Blankenship, who are the Founder and President and Vice President respectively of EmpowerHer, an organization tackling period poverty and feminine health head-on by educating communities and getting essential products into the hands of girls and women who need them most.
I first ran into these two through a LinkedIn post, and I was so intrigued by this business. How does this relate to female founders, executives, and investors? Deeply, as the struggles and the business savvy required of these two are the same that you and I have had to deal with every day in our professional lives. In fact, the through-line in corporate to professional corporate realms, it’s uncanny.
In our conversation, we talk about why access to period products is a leadership issue, not just a side issue. How shame and silence still shape opportunity. How to navigate distribution challenges, supply and demand, scaling, what it looks like to build a mission-driven organization one that’s rooted in dignity, education, and real-world impact. Imagine creating a legacy when you are 20 and 22 and you started when you were 17.
Brooke and Avery share the moment they realized something as ordinary as a period could quietly determine whether a girl shows up to school, work, or even her own potential. If you’ve ever wondered how equity actually works on the ground or how small and practical interventions can unlock enormous change, come on in, listen up, and stay to the end where I’ll share my KB Takeaways. Let me know what else you’d like to hear and from whom.
What a way to kick off a year. It’s been power-packed, and this one is particularly near and dear to all of our hearts as we have two young founders and a vice president who started something in high school, continuing to grow through college, and they’ve got such vision for the future. It’s really about providing equity and access to something we all need on a regular basis. That is feminine healthcare and specific products as well. With that, I’m going to welcome the Founder and President of EmpowerHer, Avery Bruen, and her Vice President, Brooke Blankenship.
Thanks for having us. We’re so excited.
Yeah, thank you so much.
It’s my pleasure. The way I found out about these two, really, was in my LinkedIn feed. It really struck me what they had started. I’m going to take a moment and dive right in, and while we’re talking with each other, perhaps you can wend your specifics about each other in, like where you got your start, what you’re currently doing, that kind of thing. Avery, could you provide just a brief overview of what EmpowerHer and the services it provides are?
Founding & Initial Mission Of EmpowerHer
Yeah, so basically EmpowerHer is a student-led organization based in Charlottesville, but we do surround the other fellow counties, I guess you could say. That includes some in Louisa, Orange, Madison, and so on. Essentially, we supply different menstrual products and educational pieces to these schools.
Early on, I would like to say it was about 2022, I was a sophomore in high school, and a fellow senior and I had begun EmpowerHer. It originally only started at Albemarle High School because we noticed a lack in menstrual products, not only in general but also just the consistency of them being provided by the school.
Also, just the type of products that were provided were very inadequate and commonly thrown away, destroyed, misused, or just lacking in general. Through that, we wanted to make a change, and so we started doing different community drives to essentially collect products. Once we saw the support that we got and how many people wanted to contribute and become involved, then we were able to grow throughout the county.
Which is fantastic. This is one of the things that really caught my eyes when I read the post in LinkedIn. This new season is focusing quite a bit on intergenerational work, but also finding gaps and filling them and just having the courage because part of this, had you all had any experience at all doing this thing?
No. We didn’t know if it was even possible. That’s another thing, too. We started small, just in Albemarle. Avery and I both graduated there, and so we’ve started small and just slowly become more comfortable with expanding the outreach that we’ve grown.
Which I love because, again, it’s that proof that sometimes these gaps are so huge and that’s why a number of people end up not doing anything about it because they think it’s too big, I won’t be able to make a dent. The truth is, and I have great respect for you both, is that it’s step by step.
It’s a hard and long process, but it’s definitely fulfilling.
I know you grew from this neighborhood donation drive to this now serving over something like 11,000 students. What did those early days teach you about the scope of the need?
It was definitely a labor of love, I will say, in the beginning.
No pun intended, everyone, in a way.
Basically, in the beginning, it was a lot of work, but it was definitely very fulfilling. We would do these neighborhood drives, and lucky enough for us, we started in December. It included a lot of cold, dark nights going from doorstep to doorstep. We would create these little tags that we would essentially place on the doorknobs or mailboxes, saying a little bit about our mission, what we were asking for, how they could contribute online or in person, and then when our pickup day would be.
A couple of days later after we dropped off these different tags, we would then come back and collect the products. We started with smaller neighborhoods here and there, and then once we got emails and different online donations and realizing how big this could grow, then we started moving on and covering larger tasks. Lucky enough, I’ve had a good community of friends and family members that were willing to contribute and help with these drives. That was definitely a lot of support.
I want to go a little bit deeper into that, I’ll do that a little bit later, but just because I am betting aka hoping that everyone who is reading will say, “I wonder how I could get this started or how I could get it activated in my respective county, state, area.”
We’ll get back to that.
Scope Of Period Poverty & Economic Impact
Brooke, for you, share a little to the readers who may not really understand this notion of period poverty. What does it actually look like inside schools, and what are some of the stories that stay with you?
Yeah, so I came on in 2023, about a year or two after Avery had founded the organization. I think the biggest thing that really started our immense support that we’ve gotten in the past couple of years was spreading the awareness. We see this in government and politics all the time, but you’ve got to prove to people that there is a problem. That problem not only exists, but that it also affects people, or else why are they going to do anything about it?
We spent a lot of time gathering testimonies from different students. It was something we both noticed personally in our own lives, that we would walk into our bathrooms in Albemarle High School, and the machines that they’d have with menstrual products would often be not stocked. You go to a different bathroom, that one wouldn’t be stocked either. If they were, the products were very low-grade. We were like, “This cannot be the best solution.”
That’s our biggest thing. It’s not necessarily only just the access to the products, but access to quality products themselves. Once we started talking about this, we found that it wasn’t something that we were just noticing, that it was a big problem that was happening in a lot of schools even outside of Albemarle County.
Our biggest focus is not just access to products, but access to quality products. Share on XI can tell you, it’s something that a lot of older readers experience every day at work.
I feel like another big barrier that isn’t really talked about as much with period poverty is the economic aspect. I’m going to tell a little statistic for you. Since 2019, period products, the cost of them has risen almost 4%. That in itself is crazy. Understanding that let alone grown women adults can’t always afford that, students can’t always afford that. That’s what Brooke was talking about, just not access to products in general but also adequate and high-grade products. That is so important.
That’s astonishing to me. I want to do a little research into why the heck that rise.
The Role Of Education & Breaking Stigma
Another thing we’ve looked at, too, is that obviously EmpowerHer was founded post-pandemic. One of the things that we always do is try to do a bunch of research so we walk in like when we come onto things like this or when we go to the board or whatever we’re doing, we try to bring some research along with us. Obviously, we see it in schools but the people that we’re trying to get support from may not necessarily ever been into a bathroom in Albemarle High School.
It is interesting to look at the statistics. In 2018, it was like 2 in 5 of people with periods struggled to purchase products at some point in their lives from a lack of income or whatever it was. We saw that number raise by, I think it was like 35%, 40%. We did a study on this a couple of years ago. It raised a lot from just I think it was 2018 to 2021. This was a study done by Kotex.
It’s just interesting to me the effect that the pandemic had. I think that caused an increase in people not being able to afford the products because people were struggling with their jobs after the pandemic, but also the products themselves became more expensive. What’s interesting to me is gauging the demand and how all that’s changed.
I think like going off the pandemic because there was a lot of awareness in media press about like housing costs and the raise in food prices, but this is something that’s not really talked about. I think this goes into the idea of period poverty because it’s not just products themselves but also the education surrounding it.
I think education in every sense of that word is so assumed. I think everyone thinks of when they think of this a conversation and this part of our lives, everyone’s thinking, “That’s taken care of in sex ed. Check.” That’s not really the education that we’re talking about. It goes so far beyond that.
That’s a big part of our mission. When we drop off products to schools, a lot of times, we’ll also drop off maybe it’s just 25, 50 flyers because a lot of times, we’ll put the products and we’ll drop them off and we have these little boxes, which we can show. The boxes will go in the bathrooms, and so a lot of times, we provide educational materials to hand out with those products.
A big thing, too, is just teaching the community what we really mean. What is period poverty? What’s the difference between equality and equity? All these little things that, like you said, are just assumed that people know. You start talking to people and you’re like, “We actually don’t know what we’re talking about.” That’s been something that we’ve really worked on the past couple of years, of getting news coverage and things and just having these conversations that are often really stigmatized.
Now this feels like an obvious question, but you mentioned Kotex so have you gone to the manufacturers themselves?
No, but one of our main goals and also things that we’ve done in the past is just reaching out to organizations, whether they’re small local businesses or larger ones, whether it’s just to get donations, products, or just more press. That’s definitely something we want to focus on in this new year of 2026, just expanding. A big part I think of building your network is just cold emailing people, cold calling people, because a lot of the time you’re going to get a better response than you thought because so many people want to help with our mission, it’s just figuring out how exactly they’re intertwined.
I’ve got to believe that all of the manufacturers of the products would be curious and willing to at least have a conversation because for them, it’s demonstrating purpose-driven leadership and community involvement. Something that they as a corporation but also, let’s face it, probably over half of their employees fall within this category. They want to be represented and have their opportunity to. Going to shift a smidge now. You’re talking about cold emails and essentially being taken seriously. You’re youth-led. How have you navigated being taken seriously? One, are people respectful? Two, how do you balance school, life, leadership, this? It’s like raising a family. It’s a lot.
Navigating Challenges & Gaining Credibility
Yeah, especially since this wasn’t something that existed before. It’s a little bit more than just showing up to a club meeting. We do have to put, like Avery said, a labor of love into it. I think when it comes to being taken seriously, we’ve found and I know it’s cliché, but really just like being able to take yourself seriously first.
I feel like we’ve been really good about working efficiently together, and also, when we come into things and when we present this problem and present our organization, we try to have all the facts and all the statistics and just be really professional about it. We’ve already talked about, I think, spreading awareness and showing people that the problem actually exists and that we’re not just making this up. I think that starts the conversation off good and they’re like, “Maybe they’re onto something here.” We do a lot of outreach within Charlottesville. It’s a really good place just to stir around ideas.
Spreading awareness and showing people that the problem is real starts the conversation. It makes them think, ‘Maybe they’re onto something here.’ Share on XWhen I first came on, I started like August of 2023, like that first school year of our junior year of high school. That October in 2023, we were given this opportunity to come speak at the ACPS, the Albemarle County Public School Board. They have this School Health Advisory Board meeting. I think it’s once every 2 or 3 months, I can’t remember exactly. They invited us to come talk about EmpowerHer and its mission and what we’ve done, specifically more focused in obviously the Albemarle public schools.
We walked into that meeting and obviously it was scary. We’re with all these like high-level administrative people. We walked in, we dressed up, whatever, and we had our little flyers we gave out, we spoke very calmly, we gave them the statistics, we showed them what we had noticed, we also brought stories from our peers and what they had noticed.
I think that’s really where it started. Once they realized how big of an issue that this was and that we were simply just the ones presenting it to them, I think that really helped them to not only take us seriously but also the issue itself, which is obviously the most important thing. I think just showing up with that passion behind the cause and also just making sure you have the research also really helped.
I feel like a big part of how we’ve been able to keep EmpowerHer so impactful is that other people also have this passion. We’ve had so many younger girls reach out to be a part of this. That’s how we’ve kept it active in school systems. We have different representatives and current presidents within each school distributing the products and keeping the Instagram and media account going just so we can keep it passed down, but also so we can keep an overlook over it all.
I feel like between balancing everything is when you take on something like this, an organization like this or a mission like this, the way to keep it truly consistent and impactful is to have passion for what you’re actually doing. I feel like it’s very easy for people to want to make a difference but not really sure how, so they join a bunch of random clubs or just do different things that like technically look good, but they’re not really fully committed to it.
The thing with EmpowerHer is I think every single person that we’ve had work within it and around it and just helped us in general has been passionate about the topic. Even though it takes a lot of hours and a lot of emails and a lot of rejection sometimes, it’s the fact that we actually care about our mission is what keeps it going.
I think that really showed through. When we went to that board meeting, they could tell. I think people can tell when you’re trying to do something just to put on your résumé versus it’s like a problem we actually care about and genuinely want to support. I think that really shined through in that meeting because we ended up getting a grant through Albemarle County Public Schools to help fund EmpowerHer.
Two things there. One, also that group, many of them were women, so they’ve had experience as well, and/or majority probably have daughters or nieces or neighbor girls. It’s something to your point that everyone can relate to. I think we so go about our daily lives and we just take certain things for granted. As an older generation, I think there’s just so many assumptions you never thought about it. Of course, it’s just the way it’s always been until someone such as yourselves waltzes in and says, “Wake up, Mrs. Van Winkle. It has changed and it is not exactly the same the way it used to be.”
I think a big part of that is also with our specific topic of period poverty, the stigma around it. It’s because it’s an uncomfortable topic, uncomfortable, some would like to say, it often gets pushed to the side or just, as you were saying, everything’s just assumed. The education about it is assumed. People just get their products from somewhere, I don’t know. Just figures it out. That’s not the truth. That’s not the reality. The reality is so many people struggle with this and also just aren’t educated about it. I think by just breaking past the stigma, it opens up a whole new world of education and knowledge, which is so important.
Also, in a waterfall effect, if you will, there’s been so much data about how everyone, especially in the younger set, high school, younger on, college too, are suffering so much from anxiety. This is one thing that just can really help to a degree. This one less thing they have to feel anxious about, or ashamed of, because women throughout the centuries, we’ve always felt shameful about something.
There’s so many things to be anxious about. This should not be one of them. One story that we have, a lot of times, we work with the school nurses at different schools to work with them to gauge how many products that we need. It was in the fall and we were looking at getting ready to go winter break, and we had one of the nurses I forget which school it was reach out to us and said, “Brooke and Avery, is there any way you guys could just give us all like extra products?”
We hadn’t even thought about it. These students were coming into the nurse’s office and asking if they could have some menstrual products to bring home with them for break because they weren’t going to be able to have it. That’s something that we, again, take for granted. Avery and I are both very privileged that that’s not something we’ve ever had to really worry about. It is the reality for so many different students. That I think really opened our eyes into there’s definitely a need here. We did our best to support that. It’s just been really interesting to see how the demand varies between school to school and how we can do our best to support that.
Shifting To Sustainable Infrastructure & Logistics
Avery, I want to ask you, as we’re shifting into beginning stages of distributions, what did it take to shift from this charitable model, which you still are doing, but I mean going around door to door to a sustainable infrastructure so that on a pretty regular basis, we’re going to have X amount of product or we’re going to be able to deliver this to this school at this time?
It was definitely smaller when it began, obviously. It took some trial and error, but as we began to collect products, we were lucky enough to start with a very large starting supply, almost more than we can ask for just for Albemarle. By starting off with that large bulk of products, it really set us up for a good path. As we began to expand, we learned the different supply and demand based off the school, the location, and just how frequently they needed these products.
It took a little while, but we got into the rhythm of like, “This school might request a refill two times a month, or maybe even once every two months.” It’s not always super constant, but just understanding what each school needs because some are larger, some are smaller. That also counts for within our own school.
We have done a couple different tactics. Some include like when the boxes would be empty in Albemarle High School, we would have a QR code on the box that says, “Scan this and request more products,” whether it’s pads or tampons, and just what bathroom it’s in, so it would make it more accessible. Sometimes we’ll just get texted like, “This one’s empty,” or an email from the nurses that we work with. I think the key to all of this was just understanding the flow of products, pun intended, but also just having that good base of products, because then it was like we didn’t have to constantly be doing drives because we put so much effort into initially starting up the organization.
The key was understanding the flow of products—pun intended—and having a solid base from the start. That way, we didn’t have to constantly run drives because we invested in building the organization properly. Share on XWith all this behind-the-scenes work of distribution, storage, logistics, all that, Brooke, we’ll start with you, what do you think would surprise people the most about what it actually takes to keep EmpowerHer running?
Coming from a marketing perspective, I think we do a good job at when we do our press and things of we make it seem like it’s this perfect system that we’ve implemented in all these schools, which is true, we do have a really good system that works really well. It is not glamorous by any means. One thing I’d say that maybe not surprises but people just don’t think about, we don’t have the funds to be able to mail all of these products to schools.
Everything that we do, all the 40,000-plus products we’ve raised, 11,000 students that we’re serving, we hand-distribute all these products. It would be Avery and I taking the morning off of school, driving to Madison County High School to go talk to their nurses, or driving out to Crozet to go to Western. There was just so much time put into this.
That’s something that we spent a lot of time doing. It was a really big problem whenever we both graduated like, “How are we going to continue this?” I think there’s a lot of logistical things that go into it. It’s really just making sure everything’s organized, we’re coordinating everything, and just troubleshooting. Albemarle High School did this big renovation of their bathrooms, and they turned the bathrooms into how would you even describe it, Avery?
It was essentially so we started with two traditional separated by female and male bathrooms, and so that made it a lot easier because we could just put the boxes in the female restrooms. They did this renovation where it was essentially a hallway with different unisex stalls. This was a struggle we fought because sadly, when you put period products in a unisex bathroom, there’s a higher chance that they will be tampered with, destroyed, vandalized.
It sounds crazy, but this really was a problem we faced for a couple of months.
I think there was like sixteen stalls in this giant bathroom. We’re like, “Do we put a box in each stall? That’s a lot of products.” It’s just like little things like that that we would be troubleshooting. Eventually, Avery and I are very good team, we always work it out. It’s just a lot of conversations, time, effort, energy. It’s really because we have the passion behind it that we don’t mind it.
You do have a great vibe with each other as far as a team. How do you do that?
I think it all began because originally, we met as teammates on a sport. We were used to that dynamic. Through that, we became really close friends. When I brought Brooke onto the team, I noticed her different leadership abilities. I think the beautiful thing about our friendship is we’re able to switch back and forth between professional mode and friend mode. It’s like when it’s time to lock in and focus on how are we going to get this done, who’s going to do what work, we’re very good at focusing on that. I think that’s what made it find its rhythm, I guess you could say.
We both just have a lot of respect for each other, and I feel like that comes from being on a team together. She’s my best friend. I don’t know, we just communicate really well, which I think is so important in a professional setting. Being able to switch back and forth from BFFs to business partners is something that we’ve worked on and that we’re really proud of that relationship.
I would say that you both remind me of two other sets. The fabulous founders of Avant Genomics and then also Sophie and Leah Guzman over at College Connect, who are I have utmost respect for all of them. It’s that same thing, and I think what you’ve talked about. There’s something bigger than you that you’re working towards. When that’s the case and you put that in the center, your ego, I have found, shuts up.
When you see how many people you’re helping, it’s like, “Avery, this is bigger than us. Let’s just figure out how to get it done. We’ll worry about us later.”
I also think one thing we haven’t touched on, but I’m studying like business, supply chain management, finance, that side of things. Avery’s more interested in public health, healthcare. I think those two interests, they go perfectly together for something like this because there’s a lot of coordinating. Obviously, the whole thing is around public health but there’s also the supply and demand, supply chain management, logistics of everything. I think we work really well together in that sense too.
Balancing different aspects.
Exactly, which is great. Probably each of you are like, “Okay no, you go. You take that. Thank God, I don’t want to touch it.” Those are some of the strengths you’ve discovered. Are there other strengths you’ve discovered in yourselves as leaders that you didn’t know you had at the start?
Yeah. I think everyone as a teenager goes through an awkward phase of, “I have to go talk to this new person,” or, “Does this text sound awkward?” That stuff that like you think matters but doesn’t really. I think definitely through this organization, you just have to put those anxious tendencies aside. It’s so true when people say that your network is your net worth, and that truly that the connections that you make and the people you reach out to, those are where the opportunities come from.
I think that by becoming a leader in EmpowerHer, it’s really taught me not only with public speaking, but also just knowing how to have professional conversations with people and knowing who to reach out to and knowing that there are people who do want to support your mission, and it’s just like you really just have to build up your network because there are so many helpful people out there that you can also help yourself with your organization.
How about you?
I think for me, I started working with EmpowerHer before I started my marketing business. I think I learned the power of spreading awareness and how much I can do. We have people come to us all the time saying, “How can we help?” Of course, they don’t want to give us money, they don’t want to donate any products, which is totally fine. There’s so many ways that you can help without providing something that’s material.
For example, you saw EmpowerHer on LinkedIn from a flyer that I made. I think that’s something that I learned, the power of community support and how to leverage that. On the other side of things, again, from somebody starting supply chain management, I learned the struggle of making sure you don’t overpromise on products. That’s something that we’ve had to talk about a lot.
Obviously, we’ve evaluated that there is a need for these products, but we have to be careful about making sure we’re bringing in as much as we’re putting out. Also making sure that the two of us are able to do all of that because as we’ve expanded through Central Virginia, it’s been a lot of long car rides, providing all these products. I think I’ve just learned the power of, like I said, effective communication, the importance of marketing and just being able to make sure that you can deliver on what you say you’re going to.
Key Life & Leadership Lessons Learned
Absolutely. Especially with something like this. Avery, I’m going to build on two things you brought up. Also, I would believe that you’ve probably really come to realize resilience. When you get those noes, at first, it could be just crushing. In hindsight, my experience has been, I realize, “It would have been a waste of my time anyway.” Especially with something like this.
The thing is you only need one yes and that opens up million more doors, windows, ceilings, whatever you want to say. It opens up so many more opportunities. I just think that by continuing and pushing forward, no matter how many noes you get or how many responses you don’t get or how many weird glares you look for carrying all these products throughout school, I’m just like, “That’s just what you got to do.”
There’s such a stigma, especially like when you’re in that sophomore. Junior year of high school of, “Why aren’t you guys just doing National Honor Society? Why are you starting your own club?” There’s this unspoken route that you’re supposed to take in order to have a good resume, whatever. I think it’s balancing. We’ve learned to balance the stigma around people are own age and how I think a lot of people are age, if they knocked on a door, asking for a box of tampons and somebody said no, yes, that is humiliating, but we’ve just moved past it.
It really doesn’t bother us anymore because we’re like, “We’ll just go ask somebody else.” I think that’s just been something that we’ve learned and I think we’ll take into our lives. I think a valuable skill to have as the power of just being okay with the no and understanding that it’s just redirection. It doesn’t always have to be rejection.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’m going to. Of course, I’ve been the age I am, I have heard the whole thing of, “Your network is so important. One yes,” etc. Really, the reason why you just you need that one yes is that person’s network is going to be more likely to share the value that yes just does. You’re going to have a whole slew of additional yeses that happening again and again.
I think that’s really a big part of something that we’ve realized as EmpowerHer has grown, is that there are going to be people that judge you or say no. In the end, all the support and all the yeses and all the donations outweigh anything that could be negative.
Also, all the thank yous that we get.
Speaking of support, how could readers who want to support this menstrual hygiene equity? What’s one meaningful action they can take this week to make a difference in their own community. Any suggestions?
If it’s around menstrual equity, if it’s around something like we’re doing, if there’s not something like EmpowerHer and around yo, there’s nothing stopping you from starting it. It’s just like you said earlier. I know there’s so many big problems out in the world that’s like, “I don’t even know where to start.” Even if it’s just like bringing in going to the store, buying two boxes of tampons and dropping it off at the school nurse, that’s something. That makes you feel better about yourself and feel better about the problem that you’re trying to solve.
I think just not being overwhelmed but I touched on a lot. There are so many things you can do that are completely free. If you want to go follow us on Instagram, if you want to like our post, repost. Any type of digital networking is super important and eventually filters a way to meaningful change. This doesn’t even have to go for menstrual equity. It could be something like, I don’t know, say you’re interested in climate change. You’re like, “How the heck am I going to solve climate change all by myself?” Go research and educate yourself on these topics that you’re interested in. Go follow groups and clubs.
Join clubs, go to conferences. Anything that you’re interested in, just run with it, and just learn as much as you can about it. Avery and I, we would have never gone this far with EmpowerHer if we didn’t put the research in and understand and engage the problem. I just think it’s so important to research and learn and then if there’s something you’re interested in, go find something to do with it. Even if it doesn’t exist, there’s nothing wrong with starting something from scratch.
I think that, what Brooke was saying, is that a lot of problems can feel impossible, and it’s like, “How am I even supposed to contribute to this?” I think a big part of it is just finding different organizations and missions. Before I started in power, I had no idea of how many different resources and opportunities were in Charlottesville itself.
I think once you actually put in the research and just start emailing people or signing up for things, that’s when you can truly make a difference and you feel like you’re making a difference because you are contributing. I just think sometimes, you just have to start from nothing and that’s where the most impact can be created.
True, because the baseline cannot go up.
What’s the worst-case scenario of starting a club? You don’t really get any traction. All right, at least you tried. Best case scenario, it turns into this big organization, you’re turning it into a non-profit, you’re helping that’s of students. You can’t let the fear of failure stop you from trying to create change. I think that’s something that we’ve really learned and I’m going to take with me in a professional setting and also just like throughout the rest of my life.
The truth is you to your point, you know what’s going to happen if you do nothing? Absolutely nothing.
All right, exactly. You might as well,
In closing, you two, and I feel funny asking you this. Actually, I’m going to say this a different way because throughout our conversation, I’m just realizing how this is just such a metaphor and an example of so much what older generation, middle generation, all this, as we step beyond college out into the work world experience is so many of these life lessons, we actually started learning so much early but we never put it through that lens. I’m going to ask, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your older self? I often ask that question as what advice would you give your younger self, but I think you have such courage and wisdom, your older self might need to be reminded of some of this.
I would say the older I’ve gone, the more pressure like I found myself in. The older I’ve gotten, the more big girl things I’m starting to handle. I think I would just remind my older self that the pressure that you’re experiencing is a privilege and that means it’s okay that things are expected of you. It’s okay to be realistic, it’s okay if you make a mistake.
I know Avery and I both are perfectionists, that’s why we get along. I think we get sometimes hyper-focused on not making a mistake when sometimes it’s almost faster just to make it and learn from it and move on. I would just say continue to try new things and if they don’t work it’s okay. It’s part of life and I never want to get too stuck in my ways to not change the way I’m doing something.
I definitely want to make sure I take a lot of the values that I’ve learned from EmpowerHer and continue to add them to my everyday life. I feel like when starting something like EmpowerHer and something that I want to keep in my mind as I grow older is it’s not hard, it’s just new. It’s just different. I think as people we tend to get stuck in our routines because that’s what’s comfortable. You’re not going to make any change by being comfortable.
It’s not hard—it’s just new and different. We get stuck in routines because they’re comfortable, but you won’t create change by staying comfortable. Share on XWhat Brooke was saying is that like you have to make mistakes to learn, you have to be okay with being uncomfortable because that’s how you raise the bar, that’s how you raise the standard. I think whether that’s in small everyday life or bigger organizations like EmpowerHer, that’s what you have to remember. It’s not going to feel comfortable, it’s not going to feel easy. It’s something different and something new, it’s something you’ve never done before, so you just have to understand that it’s not going to always be comfortable.
That’s how you grow. That’s where the growth is. It’s a very good point. I think so often, we forget that or we spend time bandying about between being bored because we’re so comfortable and then we say, “Toss that away, I want to go do something new,” and then we complain about it being uncomfortable.
Exactly. Pick your pain.
Beautifully put. Avery, Brooke, thank you so much. I really appreciate everything that you’re doing. I particularly appreciate the inspiration you’re about to give and you have given all of the readers. To the readers, let’s get on it, everybody.
The links to all of our social media, we keep everything informed on there. We’re also doing a campaign in 2026 to turn EmpowerHer into an official nonprofit, which will make us more applicable for actual grants. That’s something that we have going on and go fund me. If you’re willing to help, help us out. Even if it’s just a follow, you don’t have to donate.
Awesome. All right. Thank you both. I so appreciate you. Until next time.
Thank you.
—
Key Takeaways
Didn’t you find that your mind kept going and realizing like mine did, “A-ha, this is so relevant?” It revealed such a through-line through all of our lives from when we were younger to now. We’ve been going through some of these same cycles again and again from a workplace standpoint. KB Takeaways from Avery and Brooke, who are doing such amazing work educating and giving greater access to feminine hygiene products but also broadening education and doing some deep intergenerational and multicultural healing.
Your network is your net worth. The reason why that’s so important yes, we all know you just need one yes the reason why is that yes, those people share your values. Most likely the greater of their network will share your values as well. Fish where the fish are. Just start. I think sometimes we’re so overcome and overwhelmed when we see these market gaps and then we realize it is an opportunity. Just start. One step at a time, that’s all it’s going to take. You’re going to get more and more information along the way as you do.
In this day and age of everyone being so concerned about remaining relevant and not being displaced by either another younger workforce coming in, a new technology coming in, keep stretching yourself. The quickest way to becoming irrelevant is getting stuck in your ways and letting inertia stop you. Finally, because as you start those new things, it’s going to be uncomfortable. Just remember, it’s not really that hard, it’s just new. As you stick with it, you’re eventually going to find yourself in the pocket, in the groove. With that, thank you so much, as always, for spending time with me and with my guests. I look forward to continuing the conversation. Until next time.
Important Links
About Avery Bruen
Avery Bruen is the President and Co-Founder of EmpowerHER, which she founded in 2022. She is a Presidential Scholar at George Washington University, pursuing a degree in Healthcare, passionate about community impact with sustainable solutions, and currently based in Washington, D.C.
About Brooke Blankenship
Brooke Blankenship is the founder of Papillon Designs LLC, a creative and marketing agency in Charlottesville, VA. She is pursuing a degree in Business Administration with a focus on Finance and Commerce, and has served as Vice President of EmpowerHER since 2023, using her marketing expertise to grow the organization and drive social impact.