April 22, 2005

Smoking is not cool

A group of Evergreen Valley High School girls are eliminating the “cool” factor of smoking.

As part of Girls For A Change (GFC), which empowers young women to create social change in their own communities, the GFC Girl Action Team 22 from Evergreen Valley started its own anti-smoking campaign by unveiling a billboard off of Highway 880 near Gish.

The girls created an image that tackles the problem of people, particularly teens, being misinformed on the effects of second-hand smoke and the long-term permanent effects of smoking. The name of their project is S.C.U.P.I.N.O. which stands for “Smoking Causes Ugly People In N’ Out.”

The team’s campaign aims to increase awareness of the consequences and dangers of smoking—before people start. The image shows prospective teen smokers the negative issues associated with smoking and does it with information and impact—something the team feels is strongly lacking in current anti-smoking campaigns.

GFC Girl Action Team 22, coaches Cheryl Lawton and Wendy Levine, and Supervisor Pete McHugh pose in front of the billboard created by the Girls For A Change team from Evergreen Valley High School.

The team partnered with GFC volunteer consultants to design their image. The girls also secured advertising locations including billboards, Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair Mall and internal bus billboards. They raised more than $2,000 on their own and promoted the image through local Bay Area radio and TV spots, as well as newspaper ads.

In addition to helping curb the interest in smoking by teens, these young social change agents learned how to budget, implement and market a long-range plan that has far-reaching effects beyond their local community.

For more information about the Evergreen Valley chapter of GFC, go to the Web at http://www.evergreentimes.com/021105/evg_girls.htm. For more general GFC information, go to www.girlsforachange.org.