Some of the students involved with Dwight High School’s Teens Terminating Tobacco group/Photo courtesy of Erin Fogarty
Students at Dwight Township High School have teamed up with the Livingston County Health Department to try to make Dwight a little healthier. Students involved with ‘Teens Terminating Tobacco’ are learning how activism works by promoting a new tobacco use ordinance. The program is supported by Erin Fogarty from the Livingston County Health Department, who says that each year a Livingston County organization is chosen for the Illinois Tobacco-Free Communities grant. “This year we had an awesome opportunity to team up with Dwight Township Health Teacher Mitch Thompson and…work with a curriculum called ‘Engaging Youth in Positive Change’,” Fogarty explained.
The positive change the students selected is creating a new ordinance that would keep smoking and vaping products out of parks and baseball diamonds in Dwight. The students argue that tobacco products are still a major health concern and that smoking and vaping products should be kept away from areas where young people tend to gather. They demonstrated the need for the new ordinance by collecting a large quantity of smoking and vaping refuse from Dwight public spaces in just a 45-minute time span.
The students are conducting a petition drive to support their proposal and they’ll be in attendance at the May 13th Dwight village board meeting to present their draft ordinance. Fogarty and several of the students in the program joined WJEZ’s Todd Wineburner to explain their work. Those students included Eileen Betsworth, Lauryn Hoegger, Eden Beier, Jarret Jancek, and Donnie Fialko. You can hear that interview on the podcasts page by clicking on the link in the main menu at the top of the page.
