Fresno State’s Student Health and Counseling Center (SHCC) is now offering personalized and discreet “KISS Kits” for students including the choice of condoms, lubricant and dental dams.
Students can fill out a form online at bit.ly/kisskit to request an anonymous kit, using a chosen six-digit code. The kits will be disbursed at the SHCC’s pharmacy approximately 48 hours afterward. A code is required to pick up the kits to maintain privacy.
KISS Student Coordinator Hannah Dandini, a senior majoring in psychology, said it was a priority to maintain confidentiality and allow flexibility of the contents within each individual kit.
“I think it’s better than the alternative, which is going to a CVS or a pharmacy where you have to go not only buy [condoms], but you’re in front of people. You’re in front of the cashier. Here [at the SHCC], you can walk in. You don’t even have to go to the pharmacist. You just go pick up your little kit with your six-digit code on it and that’s the only thing that identifies it,” Dandini said.
Kathy Yarmo, coordinator of wellness services at the SHCC, reiterated that the process shouldn’t require the uncomfortable interactions that may arise from picking up contraceptives.
“We’re really trying to make it kind of hands-off, so students don’t really have to interact with people. They can come in and go about their business, like other people are going about their business in the building, and just pick up their kit that they requested and walk out the building,” Yarmo said.
Kits include the option of two, four or six external condoms and the choice of flavored condoms; internal, or female, condoms; water-based lubricant; or dental dams. External condoms come in regular size, large size or non-latex for students with latex allergies.
Students are able to select which items they want and which items they do not want included in their kit. The items come packaged in a colored paper bag with a kiss sticker sealing it shut.
The project started this semester, but has grown quickly popular with students who discovered the kits were available through the SHCC’s social media accounts, especially a popular Instagram reel.
Free condoms are also available in multiple areas around campus, including Paws-N-Go locations, at the Atrium, the SHCC, the Kennel Bookstore and the Cross-Cultural and Gender Center. However, many students were unaware of the service, according to Yarmo.
“One of the things that came forward was that students didn’t necessarily know about our free condoms around campus. Like, over 50% of students said that they didn’t really know where those condoms were,” she said.
According to Yarmo, this is the beginning of a new emphasis on sexual health that will expand to tabling to educate students in the future. Until then, the health center will continue to gauge student interest based on the success of the KISS Kit project.
Yarmo also encouraged students to take advantage of the availability of the kits and other services at the health center since a mandatory health fee is already part of student tuition.
“Students are already paying a mandatory health fee that entitles them to use our services, and most of the services are free. [The health center is] a place where you can get resources too, and we’ve got a lot of sexual health services here,” she said.