Full Notification

Morgan Hill, CA December 4, 2020 – Morgan Hill’s Warriors Against Vaping and E-Cigarettes (WAVE) team recently received a Youth Action Project Grant from Breathe California and the Santa Clara County Public Health Department to create a campaign to increase teen awareness of the health dangers of vaping and tobacco use.

The WAVE team is a subcommittee of the City’s Youth Action Council (YAC). The Youth Action Project grant program is youth driven, youth led and supported by adult allies. It provides local teens with the opportunity to share how vaping and tobacco impact their communities and highlight the disingenuous marketing strategies employed by vape and e-cigarette manufacturers to lure teens into vaping.

“We’re working daily to make an actual change within our schools to promote the health of the students within them. Many of us know through personal experience how dangerous the vaping epidemic is through our own schools,” shared WAVE members Hassti Tirgardoon, Jorge Uribe, and Giselle Naranjo.

This grant, in the amount of $3,500, will enable WAVE to purchase promotional giveaway items and provide support for various activities within the awareness campaign. Plans for the campaign include hosting virtual anti-vaping/tobacco awareness events addressing the reality of peer pressure and a variety of social media and virtual challenges that promote healthy competition among teens to engage in anti-vaping/tobacco activities, with the ultimate goal of getting teens to pledge not to vape. WAVE’s first virtual event will be held
Friday, January 15th, 6pm – 7pm and will be hosted through Zoom. For more information and to reserve your spot please contact YAC Advisor, Chiquy Mejia at [email protected]

“I’m proud of the WAVE subcommittee members for applying and being granted the Youth Action Project Grant from Breathe California and Santa Clara County Public Health,” says WAVE and YAC Advisor Chiquy Mejia. “This will be a great opportunity for them to create and lead a peer-to peer online campaign on social media to grow awareness of the danger of vaping and tobacco use”.

WAVE was developed in 2019 as part of a grant awarded to the Morgan Hill Police Department from the California Department of Justice to combat the exponential rise of teen vaping in Morgan Hill and the region. In 2019 the Center for Disease Control reported that 27.5% of high school students in the United States reported using e-cigarettes regularly. The steep rise of teen vaping in Morgan Hill prompted the City Council to adopt an Ordinance in late 2019 prohibiting the sale of flavored liquid tobacco products at tobacco retailers in Morgan Hill.

The grant’s activities will culminate with a community showcase of all the Youth Action Projects on January 27, 2021 sponsored by Breathe California and Santa Clara County Public Health. This will be an opportunity for WAVE to share its successes in actively working to reduce teen vaping/tobacco use in Morgan Hill.

For more information regarding this press release, please contact the YAC Advisor Chiquy Mejia at [email protected]