ZMC Health Department, Mid-East Students Team Up for “Kick Butts” Day

ZANESVILLE, OH – Volunteers were out and about today, braving the cold to help make the community a healthier place.

Students at Mid-East Career and Technology Centers partnered up with the Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department for Tobacco Take Back Day, more commonly known as Kick Butts Day.

Stacey Snider, an Elementary Career Specialist at Mideast, says the students were out around the Health Department and surrounding Downtown areas, picking up tobacco litter.

“It’s a phenomenal partnership between the Health Department and Mid-East, just being out in the community obviously being active in their own communities, taking part in something that makes a difference is wonderful.” Snider said. “The students also get community service hours, they get letters of recommendation, they can put this on their resumes, but you know at the end of the day just helping build community leaders and community volunteers, just that heart for serving, is a big part of what this day is all about too.”

Maddy McConnell, a Senior in the Unfiltered Truth Tobacco Prevention Coalition at Mid-East says this ties into the Drug Free program at Mid-East where students voluntarily submit to completing drug tests throughout the school year while also learning about the dangers behind vaping and tobacco use.

Brielle Snider, is another Senior in the Coalition and added that peer to peer mentoring has worked better when talking about hard topics like this.

She says recently they were in classrooms with younger students to teach them the dangers of vaping and the younger kids got the chance to make anti-vaping shirts for coalition members.

“I just think this is awesome because while you’re doing the work, you can actually see the difference you’re making and we did this last year, most people probably aren’t out doing this.” McConnell said. “So we can kind of see how quick it’s come back or not come back so it’s just really cool to see the difference we’re making.”

“And all the compliments give you and they’re excited to see you out here actually doing something, making a difference in the community, so that’s a very good part of it.” Snider said.

If you are interested in getting a group together to help clean up the community, you can reach out to the Health Department.