Jane Fonda Condom Crawl team distributes 5000 condoms during Super Bowl Weekend in Atlanta

With bright blue buckets, Hawaiian leis and big smiles, volunteers from the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health passed out 5000 free condoms to Atlanta locals and visitors during the Super Bowl Condom Crawls. Volunteers stopped into 20 bars, breweries and restaurants in East Atlanta Village and the Beltline, offering free Trojan Magnums and ONE condoms to patrons. Super Bowl fans entering the Stadium grabbed condoms for themselves, for friends, and for their teen sons and daughters. 

In Atlanta, condoms are not easily accessible. According to recent survey data collected by the Jane Fonda Center, roughly 80% of stores in downtown Atlanta lock up their condoms or place them behind the counter in an effort to reduce theft. In September 2018, the Jane Fonda Center launched the initiative Free Condoms Atlanta to make condoms more readily available to people of all ages, but particularly for young people.

 “We want to make it easy for young people to live healthy, shame-free sexual lives. Our Condom Crawls also help to normalize the conversation about condoms by bringing condoms out from behind locks and cases and putting them in people’s hands with a great big smile,” says Megan McCool-Myers, PhD, MPH, founder of the initiative Free Condoms Atlanta.

 
Atlanta is home to some of the country’s highest rates of sexually transmitted infections, new HIV infections and unintended pregnancy. Condoms are an effective method for preventing these unwanted outcomes. Condoms for the Super Bowl Condom Crawls were provided by the Georgia Department of Public Health

 “Condoms are a great asset for sexual health: they can provide pregnancy and STI prevention at the same time, they can demonstrate commitment to one’s own and a partner’s health, and they might even help people enjoy sex more while worrying less. This initiative is exciting because it starts to remove one of the common barriers to condom use—access,” says Dr. Melissa Kottke, MD, MPH, MBA, Director of the Jane Fonda Center.