SGA event to help smokers kick habit

By Zeke Wilcox

Hutchinson Community College student government association is to host its second annual “Kick Butts Day,” an anti-tobacco campaign on campus Wednesday, March 18.

Kick Butts Day is a national organization, based in Washington, D.C., that promotes a stand of eliminating or controlling tobacco use. It’s website is kickbuttsday.org.

This is HCC’s second annual Kick Butts Day.

Christina Long, registrar and SGA sponsor, and Diego Esparza, SGA president, described the event as a day of activism.

“We are trying to raise awareness of tobacco problems on campus.” Long said.

Esparza said another goal was to educate tobacco users of the designated smoking areas on campus.

“One of our goals is to educate about the smoking shelters,” Esparza said, “such as their locations and purpose.”

SGA is promoting this event through radio interviews, posters, and social media, including the SGA Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram.

In addition, 50 cardboard tombstones will be placed about the campus with dismal statistics of tobacco use painted on each one.

According to Esparza, the 50 tombstones represent the number deaths that occur every hour from tobacco use.

On March 18, SGA members will be manning several different table displays in the foyer of the Parker Student Union.

The main focus of the tables is to alert students to the hazardous effects of tobacco.

One table will be dedicated to the environmental issues of tobacco use on campus.

Another table, manned by Duncan Ensminger, SGA treasurer, will be displaying the different chemicals found in cigarettes.

Ensminger said the chemicals will be displayed in various beakers and test tubes so that they can be looked at more readily.

A scavenger hunt will also take place with a $50 gift card as the reward.

Free tee-shirts will be distributed to the first 100 people to sign a pledge wall against tobacco use.

From noon to 1 p.m., HCC President Carter File and Brett Bright, vice president for student services, will be grilling and giving away hotdogs in the courtyard, in front of the union.

Maci Wilson, SGA secretary, said she is looking forward to seeing the students’ reactions.

“I’m excited to have students see what we have done and to see what we have on display,” she said.

Kick Butts Day is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Parker Student Union and in the courtyard.

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