By MARGAUX MASSEY, staff reporter
Nothing’s cleaner than a packaged wiener, but unfortunately for broke college students, condoms are expensive. The Central Washington University Wellness Center hopes to combat that with the “Love Glove Club.”
“I think it’s a pretty cool idea,” junior information technology administrative management major Brandy Searcy said. “It’s a lot more convenient for people who can’t get to Planned Parenthood or afford condoms.”
The club has a simple premise: Students who sign up for the club receive 20 free condoms of their choosing per quarter.
Of course, the Wellness Center has always given out free condoms to students, so why make it a club?
Alice Bowman, a health educator at the Wellness Center, said that the club is a much better way to keep track of how many condoms they give out and it helps make people more aware. The club, which has been around for a few years, has only recently become free.
“We’ve always offered condoms out of this office and this is a better way to publicize it,” Bowman said.
The idea came from a former peer health educator, but it wasn’t an original one. According to Bowman, clubs like this are already popular on college campuses nationwide.
Sophomore public health major Lindsay Cristobal says the club is a great idea because “people can get protection and hopefully be encouraged to use it because it’s free and supplied for you.”
Students can sign up for the club by stopping by the Wellness Center or emailing them. All they need is their student ID, which means the club is only for students at Central.
Students can also place their orders for what they want in person or via email. There are six types of male condoms, as well as female condoms, flavored dental dams and lubrication.
“We try to be as inclusive as possible,” Bowman said on their wide variety of products.
She thinks the condom club is a great idea because sometimes they hear “condoms don’t work for me.” Bowman said the great benefit to having free condoms is that people can try out new things.
The club “should come up with ways to educate people on condoms as well,” Cristobal said. “Encourage them so it’s not as straightforward and awkward.”
As of right now, the club just gives out condoms, but starting next year, Bowman says she hopes they will have an educational video that people will have to watch before they join.
Bowman says a lot of people don’t know everything they should about condoms and hopes the video will help.
Unfortunately, since the Wellness Center is located right in the middle of the SURC and the advertisement for the Love Glove Club is noticably large in their window, they have gotten some complaints.
“Parents can get upset about it when young children on campus see the posters,” Bowman said. That is the only negative feedback the club has received and because of that, they are encouraged to keep the club going.
The Wellness Center hopes in the future to tie the club in with Sexual Responsibility Week and Pure Romance parties.
“I don’t see [the club] going anywhere anytime soon,” Bowman said.
