A great opportunity

Every semester our school finds some way for us Nursing Students to get involved in the community. This semester we participated in Tobacco prevention education to the 6th graders in the local area.

I was really dreading this b/c I have a test on Monday, and a million other things to do, but it ended up being very enjoyable.

We were all split into groups of 3, and they finally learned that letting us choose the groups ends up with happier groups. So Vanessa, Kim & I went to Davidson Middle School here in Crestview and had a blast.

We were there through the entire day and gave the presentation to all of the science classes. There were corny games/questions/videos, but overall it was way better than I thought it could be. The kids were great and our host teacher was amazing. We had great reactions from the students...which was probably due to all our pockets filled with dum-dums waiting to award everyone who participated :-)

The coordinator for the program, that gave us all the initial information, stopped by our school and came to our presentation. This was the only time I was really nervous, but she said she was very impressed and thought we did an amazing job. I asked her why all the Middle Schools in the area weren't getting these presentations, and she said they didn't have enough volunteers...so I told her that I was completely willing to do this again if the presentation was the same, b/c I didn't have to practice. Her eyes lit up, and I wrote down my email address for her.

I have to admit that I did have alterior motive...we have to do a lot of volunteer hours before we graduate...so I saw this as an easy way to complete those hours. And, I really liked the message, and how receptive the students were.

I am not quite sure how many phone calls the school will get from angry parents though....b/c when we were talking about "ways to aviod 2nd hand smoke" I asked the kids, "do you have the right to ask someone not to smoke around you?" And almost all of them said, "no." To which I replied,
"Yes, you do!!"
"This is your body, and you have the right to protect it against harmful substances."
"If you can't leave the area, you have the right to ask the person not to smoke."
You wouldn't believe how many smiling faces were staring at me after I said those words.

Yes, some parents will be upset...but I think that if it causes just one parent to choose to take it outside...then it was worth it!