News and Events
The DeSoto County Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) Chapter is Making Plans for the 2023-2024 School Year!
September 7, 2023
Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) is Florida’s statewide youth organization working to mobilize, educate and equip Florida youth to revolt against and de-glamorize Big Tobacco. SWAT is a united movement of empowered youth working towards a tobacco-free future.
Our DeSoto SWAT kicked off the 2023-2024 school year with booths at Open House Night in August. The booths were held at Nocatee Elementary, DeSoto Middle and DeSoto High School. We are excited for our newest SWAT Club that will be held at Nocatee Elementary. During the open house they were able to recruit 12 new members for the SWAT chapter and educate them on the importance of keeping tobacco out of our schools. We are beyond proud that our numbers are continuing to rise in our local SWAT chapter.
New SWAT members at Nocatee Elementary pictured above.
Another big initiative that our SWAT youth have been working on is promoting our free tobacco education course. The course is provided through Palm Beach County and is free of charge to us. The goal of this course is to educate those students on what is in tobacco and how harmful it is to their bodies and future. DeSoto Middle School has had great success in piloting the course. The course is now written into the Student Code of Conduct and will be used as a first offense if a student is caught with tobacco/vaping. The course is used in place of ISS or OSS for the students as losing valuable class time is what we want to stop from happening.
We are very proud of our youth and the initiative they are putting forth to advocate for their health and a tobacco free future in DeSoto County. We are looking forward to what the 2023-2024 school year holds!
If you are interested in partnering with our SWAT Youth or if any event arises that we can help with, please contact Lindsey Sager at lsager@quitdoc.com.
