For the past month Forks Middle School Prevention Club students have been planning their second annual Kick Butts Day event. Kick Butts Day, March 19, is a national day of activism that empowers youth to stand out, speak up and seize control against Big Tobacco.

They planned fun activities to bring awareness to their peers about the health hazards of tobacco use as well as encourage them to reject the tobacco industry’s deceptive marketing targeting teens and stay tobacco-free.

Students were asked to wear boots on the day of the event to “give tobacco the boot.” Activities during each lunch included an information table with handouts, goodies and prizes, jumping rope then breathing through a straw to demonstrate the difficulty of being physically active with smoke-damaged lungs, Pin the Ashes on the Cigarette Butt game and a Tombstone Scavenger Hunt.

Each headstone contained a fictitious name and a statistic that is smoking-related. Many students participated and had fun with the activities. Ann Penn-Charles, Youth Prevention Specialist for the Quileute Tribe, joined the students and provided an information table as well to share her knowledge and information.

Prevention Club is made up of students in grades 6-8. Their goal is to tackle issues that teens face in their lives such as substance abuse, unhealthy relationships, bullying, dating violence and suicide prevention. Their supervisors are Laura Hahn, FMS counselor and Sandy Heinrich, Readiness To Learn Coordinator/Family Support Advocate.

Prevention Club members are grateful for the support of Forks Elks Lodge which generously provided them with funds to purchase materials and prizes for the event. Members also were able to wear their new T-shirts that were recently printed thanks to a generous donation from Soroptimist of the Olympic Rain Forest and a bake sale they held at the middle school last spring.