The Loveliest Village

Ignite Auburn is holding an activism event Tuesday, November 27 at 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m on Cater Lawn.  It is a memorial dedicated to those who are losing or have lost their lives due to tobacco.  They will be placing T-shirts on the lawn every 72 seconds to represent a life just lost in America.

“We know that the public understands how deadly smoking can be to smokers,� said Leah Huskey, Ignite Auburn Vice President, “but we want to show people how extensive that fact really is.  The 72 second statistic represents people who die from just breathing in others’ smoke, too.  Even children are included.�

Ignite Auburn is an organization dedicated to the prevention of youth smoking.  For the past two years, they have participated in the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’s Kick Butts Day.  Last year they organized a carnival for the children of Project Uplift and others in the Auburn-Opelika communities.  

Their other main goal is to make policy change by working to keep politicians accountable while dealing with “Big Tobacco.�  They make visits to Montgomery to speak to legislators about steps that can be taken and laws that can be proposed to make the state healthier for those who smoke and those who can not help but be around its effects.

The “Big Tobacco� enemy that Ignite works against is made up of the enormous tobacco companies like Philip Morris USA, who makes and manufactures Marlboro cigarettes, and R. J. Reynolds, who makes and manufactures Camel and Salem cigarettes. 

Ignite Auburn is a chapter of a national organization by the same name.  Ignite is calling upon the young generation to stand up and make changes in the way the tobacco companies play a role in politics. 

“To replace the 1,200 American smokers that die every day, the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars marketing to young people,â€? Ignite Auburn’s Facebook group states.  “This gives youth the unique moral authority to fight back and defend our generation. Ignite realizes that engaging young people in the political process is the only way that we will ultimately triumph over Big Tobacco. It’s about a generation standing up, being counted, and demanding better policy from our elected officials. Sounds like a hefty endeavor, we know, but we have the power to do it, and we’re going to prove it.â€?

Ignite was founded on a national level by Katherine Klem from Kentucky.  She was the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ 2002 National Youth Advocate of the Year. 

According to Ignite national’s Web site, “She was taking notes on the women’s suffrage movement for her history class sophomore year of high school, and wondered why young people didn’t have a similar nationwide movement that would allow them to fight the tobacco industry with one voice.�

Now that Katherine and 25 other chapters across the nation have joined together, including Auburn’s, things are starting to change and more and more youth are getting in the action.

“Everyone knows that tobacco companies market their deadly, addictive products to our generation,� Ignite national’s Web site states.  “That’s why for the past eight years, with our peers all over the country, we have launched a direct assault on the tobacco industry. We’ve had sit-ins outside their offices, aired commercials exposing their lies, coordinated letter campaigns to fill their mail rooms, and aimed tons of other projects at getting the tobacco industry to change its ways.�

For more information about Ignite Auburn, contact their president, Kylee Patrick, at kylee@ignitegeneration.org.  Their next meeting is Thursday, December 6 at 5 p.m. in Foy 205.  The national Ignite Web site is www.ignitegeneration.org.

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