Hello! My name is Lauren T. and I am a sophomore at Arrowhead Park Medical Academy in Las Cruces, NM. I’ve been a part of Evolvement for two years and a member of the Evolvement Leadership Team for one year. I’m here to write about my recent experience in hosting principal meetings. We meet with principals so that we can communicate with schools and personally inform them of what we’re doing with the 24/7 campaign to support tobacco-free environments. Due to Covid-19, both of my recent principal meetings took place online through Zoom.

I recently joined the Evolvement Leadership Team and attended the summit that was held for the team. All throughout the summit, I felt that my need to help my community was increasing and I wanted to do all I could to help. Thus, I reached out to two principals [who ended up both responding back quickly] and scheduled two principal meetings in one week. The first of those meetings was actually my first ever principal meeting. Before the meeting, the 24/7 campaign manager and I met up over Zoom, she gave me a general idea of what was going to happen in the meeting and we practiced what I would say. It helped me a lot, and I just know that if we never had that meeting, my first principal meeting would have ended in disaster. 

I’m not going to lie, on the day of the meeting, I was very nervous. Questions were flying around my head like, ‘what if I forget what to say’, or ‘what if the principal doesn’t care what I have to say?’ However, once I had the meeting, all of those questions disappeared. I found that the principals sincerely care about their schools, and they genuinely want to make their schools a better place by working with 24/7.  As a result, I was able to gain their support for any future school board meetings, provide them with tobacco-free signage, and even received a request from one of the principals to speak at their school about 24/7, once the pandemic calms down.

This experience has not only helped me improve my leadership and speaking skills but has also allowed me to help make many school environments safe for students. Not only that, but having principal meetings helps 24/7 by gaining support from schools to become 100% tobacco-free. I know that, after attending two of these meetings, my perspective of my school has changed for the better; and my faith in my ability to make my community a better place has increased exponentially. I just hope that one day 24/7 and my community are able to work together to adopt tobacco-free policies and create a better environment for students to learn and thrive in.

1. Blog
2. Virtual Advocacy: How I’m Being Proactive for 24/7