For Immediate Release

For more information please contact:

Clare Jones
Helping Services for Northeast Iowa
563-582-5317
cjones@helpingservices.org

Area JEL Students Celebrate Kick Butts Day

Kick Butts Day was a huge success in Delaware County this year. Maquoketa Valley, Ed-Co and West Delaware JEL (Just Eliminate Lies) students worked very hard to raise community awareness on the facts surrounding Big Tobacco.  This event taught Delaware County JEL students the importance of youth advocacy, leadership skills, and social activism.

All three JEL groups created activities around the theme “They put WHAT in a cigarette?”  According to the Kick Butts Day website, sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, “Almost every product has a list of ingredients somewhere on the label. So isn’t it strange that there isn’t a list of ingredients on a pack of cigarettes? If there were, it would be a really, really long list! There are over 4000 chemicals in a single puff of cigarette smoke, and 69 of them are known carcinogens.”

All three JEL groups used a text message blast to tell other youth “JEL wants you to know: the FDA keeps arsenic out of lollipops but not out of cigarettes!  Pass it on.”  JEL groups also utilized posters and school announcements to get the message out to their peers. Maquoketa Valley JEL decided to get students attention by conducting a science experiment outside their school using toilet bowl cleaner , which is one of the chemicals found in cigarettes.  It was a blast!

JEL was created in Iowa in the summer of 2000 to counter the increased targeting of Iowa teens by tobacco companies. Their philosophy is to turn education into action.  For more information visit their website www.jeliowa.org