National “Kick Butts Day” was March 16, 2016, a day when brought awareness about tobacco and the problem it brings to our communities. As a member of the Neu-Life Community Development FACT group, I am a part of Wisconsin’s youth-driven tobacco prevention movement for young leaders in grades 7 through 12.

We spread the truth about tobacco through what we call “FACTivisms” in our community throughout the year. We were very excited to participate in this national day of awareness in addition to our ongoing advocacy work. Recently my FACT group from Neu-Life went around our neighborhood and picked up cigarette butts. We collected over 2,000 butts within one hour in just a three block radius of our neighborhood. It was a great and challenging thing to do. It opened out eyes to the amount of littering cigarette smoking can create. We hope to inspire people and see more groups or community agencies to do things like this. Please check out our pictures!

FACT is part of the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and the City of Milwaukee Tobacco-Free Alliance. For more information on FACT, please visit www.FACTmovement.org or contact Deb Heffner at DHeffner@communityadvocates.net for additional information.