Fifteen Students Selected to Attend SAY WHAT! Summer Conference
This summer, The Coalition, Inc. is taking 15 students to the annual Say What! summer conference in Conroe, TX to learn more about youth leadership and tobacco prevention. Say What! stands for Students, Adults and Youth Working Hard Against Tobacco and is a state-wide movement with the goal of unifying the youth of Texas under the common goal of making Texans healthier regarding tobacco use. Students applied for a chance to attend the summer conference based on their participation, drive, and passion in tobacco prevention.
The students that were chosen to attend the tobacco prevention conference include: Garrett Greene, Madalyn Howard, Kellen Kruk, Hayden Reed, Faith Thompson, Carter Wood, and Mason Wood from Pineywoods Community Academy; Kayla Warner and Jazmine Jamison from Hudson High School; Brianna Moreno from Zavalla High School; Kemariya Thomas and Brianna Castro from Diboll Jr. High; Noemi Ceja, Jadey Height, and Jodi Blount from Chireno High School. Congratulations to these students.
The Say What! Texas Tobacco-Free Conference will be held at La Torretta Resort in Conroe, Texas and will be a fun-filled training and networking opportunity that focuses on taking students to the next level in tobacco prevention. Through fun, interactive workshops, students can choose from a variety of tracks based on their previous knowledge of tobacco prevention. Each track is designed to help both youth and adult participants make a difference in their homes, schools and communities based on their knowledge, skills and motivation to get involved in tobacco prevention.
The Coalition, Inc. secured the Tobacco Prevention & Control Coalition (TPCC) grant from Texas Department of State Health Services in 2014 with the goal of preventing and reducing the harmful use of tobacco products in rural areas like East Texas, where tobacco-related health problems are more prevalent. The TPCC grant has a particular emphasis on preventing tobacco use among young people because according to the Centers for Disease Control, statistics show that each day in the United States, more than 3,200 kids under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette.