Presenting Coffee Talk: a weekly roundtable led by the city's best doers curated by Presence Agency.

Every Wednesday at 2pm we'll be sipping Stumptown coffee in the lobby while we chat with some of our favorite people in town about what they're doing.

Our sixth installment features Ashley Novoa, founder of the Chicago Period Project, a feminist, grassroots organization that works to empower homeless and in-need people to experience their periods with dignity. She'll be with us discussing her path to CPP and how leveraging the bad to do good.

Ashley Novoa is the founder of Chicago Period Project. She was raised in Pilsen by her father, a Mexican immigrant, and her mother, a first-generation Mexican immigrant. Her parents struggled and worked long hours to provide her and her two siblings with their humble upbringing and to send Ashley to private high school and two years at DePaul University. Provoked by the election this November, Ashley and some internet moms banded together to begin Chicago Period Project, and since then have collected tens of thousands of menstrual hygiene products. Ashley is also a stay-at-home mom to a three-year-old boy, who she’s teaching all about normal bodily functions — including periods.