Health services finds funding to keep program alive

By LIZZ HAROLD

lharold@cherokeescout.com

The N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund was dissolved under the new state budget that came into effect

July 1. More than 50 percent of the agency’s funds – the state’s portion of a national tobacco lawsuit settlement

– went toward tobacco education in schools.

It was “down to the 11^th and-a-half hour” said Cindi Herr, tobacco prevention coordinator for Cherokee and

Graham counties, when she got word that the program would be financed by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The teen tobacco prevention and cessation initiative, of which we were a part, yielded $8.35 per every $1 invested. That is phenomenal. ... Despite this information, and all of the data on the hundreds of thousands of children served by our programs, the legislature voted to disband the trust fund and eliminate our programs,” Herr said.

It was less than a week before the new fiscal year began, and coordinators were informed they had been given an additional year to continue their campaigns. It was granted to give the programs the final year of their three-year grant cycle.

Now operating under the state’s Tobacco Prevention and Control branch, $100,000 will be shared between Cherokee and Graham counties in the 2011-12 school year.

There are about 350 club members in grades 5-12 who are involved in peer-to-peer education and community awareness projects. Graham County has one staff person and about 50 students.

“We are in the process of hiring new personnel. We’re putting new leaders in place next year,” Herr said. “We are not going to see any decrease in the students we serve or the schools we are in.”

SADD but TRU, (Students Against Destructive Decisions and Tobacco. Reality. Unfiltered.), has caught on with the student population. About 100 students attended last year’s quiz bowl where different schools competed in a battle of knowledge of tobacco, drug and alcohol facts.

Ambassadors from each club were voted upon by their peers to attend the Western North Carolina Teen Institute in June in Mars Hill. Eight students and two supervisors traveled to Mars Hill College for a week of leadership and media literacy training.

The students wrote, shot and edited a short commercial about the regrets associated with alcohol abuse. Three students gave brave personal testimonials of what they, or people they’ve been close to, have experienced because of alcoholism.

“In the fall of 2009, me, my mom and her friend were hit by a drunk driver. There were no injuries, but if you don’t do it you won’t regret,” Jessie Bryson, 16, said in the video featurette titled “No Regrets.”

Rising Hiwassee Dam High School freshman Ryan Turner, 14, discussed the physical violence he endured from an alcoholic father. “His abuse of alcohol created my abuse,” Turner said.

The commercial will be aired on a local television station and will be shown throughout the school system.

It also can be viewed by searching “SADD but TRU” at www.youtube.com.

With the ambassadors’ videography experience, Herr hopes to have them lead other students in creating their own similar public service announcements next year.

Students promote tobacco-free school zone

“Don’t do drugs!” “This is a tobacco-free school!” students chanted from the curb as parents dropped off their children for school.

On May 11, SADD but TRU students at Ranger Elementary/Middle School held a parent outreach during drop-off, providing literature about secondhand smoke and holding up posters, aided by the school mascot and club mascot Ciggy Butts. The event emphasized the importance of not only keeping the campus clean, but of not smoking around children.

The outreach was in response to a litter clean-up the club performed in March, in which the students collected 933 pieces of litter, including 320 cigarette butts and two beer bottles. The students were appalled. The campus had been wiped clean in October 2009. It was the highest yield of cigarette butts on an elementary or middle school campus in the shortest length of time.

“With this being a well-advertised tobacco-free campus, as are all our schools in North Carolina, this amount of cigarette litter was unacceptable,” tobacco prevention coordinator Cindi Herr said. “The students decided that something needed to be done to call attention to the situation.”

Students in grades 4-8 made dozens of posters, as well as a cardboard cigarette that displayed all of the filters that had been collected. A table of chemicals found in secondhand smoke sat next to the entrance to the school. A garbage can was placed at the curb for proper disposal of trash.

“We hopefully helped parents do the right thing and not to litter on our property,” said Brittany Simms, a sixth-grader who has been in the club for two years.

“It was a lot of fun going outside with all of those parents – dancing, yelling, and singing. Also I was with my friends, who were cheering with me,” said Sarah Webber, also in sixth-grade.

“I liked trying to convince people to stop doing drugs and smoking. I liked coming and learning about smoking and drugs,” said fifth-grade student Madison Crisp. “I learned that smoking can take away your voice box and you really, really regret it.”

The response from the parents was overwhelmingly supportive, and school officials said the outreach went well.