March 22, 2019
By: Bill Conger
Normally, ‘kicking butts” is something schools discourage, but on Wednesday March 20th, those words had a more playful yet serious meaning. “Kick Butts Day” is observed nationally, as part of a campaign for tobacco-free kids, to encourage young people to steer clear of smoking and smokeless tobacco.
At DeKalb West School, 4th-8th grade students signed a banner provided by the DeKalb Prevention Coalition with the pledge to “#Be the First: Let’s Make History Together and Help Create the First Tobacco-Free Generation.” Students had the opportunity to check out displays like “Mr. Gross Mouth” that showed the damage tobacco can cause in that one area of the body alone. They also observed a model of a healthy lung next to a blackened, cancerous lung that had been exposed to years of smoking.
For more information about the campaign, check out https://www.takingdowntobacco.org.