I am Siena L. and I am a junior, graduating early from Arrowhead Park Early College High School. I joined the Evolvement club at my school early last year, my sophomore year of high school. It sounded like a fun and easygoing club to be a part of. The first year, I did my training and some friends and I did a 24/7 tabling event during lunch one day. My second year has been more eventful for me. I have had the opportunity to participate in many more events. One of the events was giving presentations to middle schoolers on the importance of creating a tobacco free environment in schools. 

Soon after the training day this spring semester, Saim, a fellow Evolvement member came up to me and asked me if I wanted to give presentations with Evolvement to Camino Real Middle Schoolers. I thought that sounded like a great idea, and that he should bring it up to Mrs. Gallegos, who is the sponsor for the Evolvement club. The spring semester continued and we planned out our training meetings and selected the date to visit Camino to present to the students.

Prior to the presentations, our team, me, Saim, Paiuma and Sam met to prepare and practice presenting the slides. We also got assigned the slides that we would be presenting on the day of. I felt pretty prepared going into the presentations. There was a lot of content and information that needed to be covered, but I was pretty confident. 

I have to say that of all five presentations that I gave that day, the first one was my worst. I got kind of nervous and my mind was blank and I could not remember some of the facts in the presentation. I had to use the speaker notes a lot in that presentation. Luckily, it was all uphill from there. After the first presentation I just kept improving and memorizing more and more of the facts. I sort of found the rhythm in giving the presentations. Another thing that really helped was that I wasn’t alone. My fellow Evolvement members were also in the same boat as me, and I had people to talk to in between classes. By the last presentation we were pros. I would say that overall the presentations were a success. 

In the end, this experience was very meaningful and powerful for those kids, and to us too. I was happy to be able to educate the kids on the harmful effects of tobacco and nicotine products. I think a lot of those kids learned something, and all of them were definitely reminded of the severity of this issue. I hope that after hearing those presentations, those kids will be a little more cautious around tobacco and nicotine products.

1. Blog
2. 24/7 Evolvement Presentations at Camino Real Middle School