News and Events

Dixie County Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) Members Attend Regional Meeting
October 21, 2017

On Saturday, October 21, 2017 Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) Youth from across Region 2 met in Bradford County at the Charley E. Johns Conference Center for their annual regional meeting. There was a great turn out with over fifty students in attendance. Each county in Region 2 had two youth representing. Dixie County sent two students from Ruth Rains Middle School, Alice Whittington and Mary Whittington with the support of the Ruth Rains Middle School SWAT Advisor, Mr. Richard Whittington.

The Youth Advocacy Board members discussed a variety of tobacco related topics, some of which included “Taking Down Tobacco” and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). The meeting featured Sam Allen. Sam was a very engaging and inspirational speaker. He discussed a concept called “What’s your Why?” and “7 Things I would tell my 15-year-old self”. These concepts were presented and posed to get students define why they had the initiative to end tobacco. Sam encouraged students to understand and focus on why they are involved in local prevention efforts.

SWAT youth enjoyed a delicious lunch and had so much fun in the photo booth. During the afternoon sessions, students were trained on a ENDS Products Campaign that featured true & false cards (Epic & Fail). YAB youth finished up the afternoon by training Region 2 SWAT youth on Taking Down Tobacco.

Both SWAT youth reported what they learned at the regional meeting with the other SWAT members and are excited about the many new calendar activity ideas.  They look forward to having some really great events in Dixie County this year.

For more information on the work of the Dixie County SWAT Chapter, contact Melanie Anderson at manderson@quitdoc.com