After not being able to get hygiene products, this Indy mom is making sure all families have access to the hygiene products they need.
Eleven years ago, Christina Huffines was a single mother to her three children when she found herself at a food pantry, noticing they didn’t provide the hygiene products she needed. If anything, she needed the hygiene products just as much as the perishable items.
As a solution to accommodate the lack of hygiene products available to her, she turned into a self-proclaimed “crazy couponer” to obtain the products her family really needed. Somewhere along the way, she morphed her situation into a non-profit, ensuring other families are not without hygiene products. Today, that solution is more formally known as Indy Hygiene Hub, a non-profit that aims to provide basic hygiene products to individuals and families across Indiana, free of charge.
“I realized you couldn’t get hygiene products, and if you could, then you could only get one or two items, and then these were items that also food stamps didn’t cover,” Huffines says. “Back then, I became one of those crazy couponers and started couponing for different hygiene products. I realized that if I was in need of those items, there must be other families in need. Then I just started posting on pay-it-forward sites.”
People started reaching out to Huffines for free hygiene products, and she started meeting people at gas stations to give them bags of hygiene products. In present day, Huffines serves as Indy Hygiene Hub’s founder and president, but also works full-time for a functional medicine practice.
“It grew pretty quickly,” Huffines says. “I got involved with my church and we had our first event and we got our first pantry space. Fast forward to COVID and we grew very quickly, very large, and then I had to start ordering stuff in bulk at wholesale. Now we are reaching 500+ families a month.”
According to Provisions Promise, a nonprofit that distributes personal care items to people in need, one in three families in the United States find it “hard to afford basic household items,” which includes hygiene products.
Indy Hygiene Hub provides a variety of hygiene products to those in need, including shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, laundry soap, diapers, wipes, pads and tampons.
To utilize its services, patrons can go online to the Indy Hygiene Hub website and register. The third Saturday of each month is the monthly drive-thru pantry from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. at 9511 Angola Court, Indianapolis. Valid photo IDs are required, but no further documentation is necessary beyond that.
“Any family can come from all over the state,” Huffines says. “It’s not county based; we help anybody. They just need to come. If they haven’t pre-registered, then we’ll have them fill out the form when they come. When they come, they can get all the items they need.”
As for funding, Indy Hygiene Hub is funded through its annual gala and individuals who make monthly donations, as well as the occasional business that will run donation drives for hygiene products for them.
Indy Hygiene Hub continues to grow, and Huffines hopes to use her non-profit as a way to educate people on the importance of hygiene poverty, and the need that surrounds it.
“Most people still don’t realize that food stamps don’t cover diapers, pads and tampons,” Huffines says. “Eventually I want to have my own community center where families can come to one place to get all of their needs met, whether it’s to get food, hygiene products, clothes, whatever the items may be. I just want to have one center in the North Indy location area.”
To utilize Indy Hygiene Hub or make a donation, visit indyhygienehub.org.
