Moon Time Sisters helping girls and women in Far North communities

It's all part of being a woman, but for many girls and women in northern communities, having your period is also very expensive.

However, a group in southern Ontario is looking to help. Moon Time Sisters, based in Toronto, collects menstrual products for girls and women in northern Indigenous communities.

The program originally started in Saskatchewan and in 2017, the Ontario chapter was opened by Veronica Brown.

She says she got the idea to start the Ontario chapter after reading an article. It stated some Indigenous girls were not attending school during their period as they didn't have access to affordable menstrual products.

From there, she started contacting health care centres in remote Indigenous communities.

"We got a pretty good response," she said.

"We started out small but … it's just kind of grown from there."

Brown says the price of a box of tampons can be upwards of $18 in a remote community.

"It's absolutely not affordable," she said. "Down here, we're looking at something at Shopper's on sale for $2.99 to $4.99."

Brown says donations are collected in Toronto and financial contributions help pay to ship the products north.

Currently, Brown says donations have been sent to seven communities in Ontario and one in Quebec.

"It's been such a lovely connection between the southern women and northern women," she said.

"It's kind of been a really nice bonding between us all."