By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Members of Live Well Florence gave a presentation at the regular meeting of Florence council this week urging the group to “make Florence a ‘healthy destination place.'”
Live Well is a community organization with community-wide initiatives designed to improve the health of all people in Florence and Northern Kentucky. The Northern Kentucky Health Department supports the initiative, as does St Elizabeth Healthcare, and the YMCA.
The mission of Live Well Florence, as well as Live Well NKY, is to encourage communities to work together to make healthy environments, as well as behaviors and systems to establish NKY to be one of the healthiest communities in the country.
“Live Well Florence is a grass roots coalition and member of the live well NKY group,” said Tom Cahill, Chairman of the Smoke Free Florence initiative. “We’re here to bring healthy environments and opportunities for all that live, work, pray and play in the city of Florence. We currently receive our financial support from St Elizabeth Healthcare through some grants and also through the Northern Kentucky Health Department.”
For a lot of people, this means increasing physical activity, and eating well, and having a smoke free environment. Cahill said those are the goals in order to make Florence a healthy destination place. Live Well has been giving out produce in Florence, in partnership with Florence Christian Church, Freestore Foodbank, Wellcare and Anthem United Healthcare since October of 2017. They are proud that they kept it up through the pandemic.
In 2022 they served 4,753 households and 14,015 individuals. So far in 2023 the organization has helped over 1,000 households and 3,000 individuals.
In addition to eating healthy and exercising, Live Well is targeting all types of tobacco products, including smoking and vaping. They have brought in local high schools to take part in the training that spells out how dangerous smoking and vaping can be.
“According to Boone county waste, cigarette butts are the number 1 litter item in the United States,” Cahill stated. He added that groups in Live Well Florence picked up 1.3 pounds of tobacco waste in one day at the Florence Government Center grounds.
“That is a problem. Thirty-two percent of litter is cigarette butts that contain carcinogens. We call it third-hand smoke. Some of that litter cannot be recycled.”
Ben Brown from the Boone County Alliance spoke next, telling council how they are trying to get the message out to high school kids. He said he has worked in high schools for 20 years, and vaping is something that has gotten to an epidemic level in this area.
“I hold a class every Friday for students who get caught with vapes in our schools. They don’t understand that chemicals are involved, there are 63 plus chemicals in an e- cigarettes. Some of those are formaldehyde, some of those are acetone, some of those are things they are inhaling and ingesting in their lungs.”
He brought some students from Cooper High School who had been to a NKY vaping summit, and they developed an info-graphic for their high school because it is important to them to provide a non-smoking environment in their school.
“I would say probably 20 percent of our schools’ issue as far as write-ups are involved with vaping, whether it is vaping THC, whether it is vaping tobacco, whether it is vaping other substances, I would say the percentage is that high. And it is getting worse. All of that starts with being able to do it in public, and not having strong laws to prevent them from buying it getting their hands on it. We are seeing kids as young as 8, 9, and 10 bringing it to school.”
Five students stood up to report on what they have discovered in the summit. One student, Junior Isabella Deere, said she wanted to stop people from getting started on vaping and wanted to help people quit. Senior Drew Schilling said he had lost loved ones to lung cancer, and said he thought vaping is just as bad, if not worse than smoking. Sophomore Isaac Brown said he sees people vaping and he has a little sister who he wants to protect from being tempted to vape. Another Sophomore, Audrey Schilling said it is sad to see people she grew up with become addicted, and their positive attitudes deteriorate into negative attitudes. Junior Maleah Alexander told council that people know about the dangers of vaping, but there is not a lot of action, such as creating laws, which she feels would resonate with her friends.
Brown wrapped up the session by addressing council.
“We want to make sure that you understand that it is important to us to try to curb this vaping epidemic,” he said. “What’s happening is that when the people who are in charge, the people who make laws, the people that are able to control things don’t control things, other people tend to take advantage. So I think that once you all show attention to, Hey, it is important to us, then it will be important to everybody else, and it will kind of trickle its way down.”
Cahill picked up the conversation and issued a challenge to council, saying their mission started with Williamstown in 2019 to have a smoke free ordinance, and since then Dayton and Bellevue have passed their own legislation. He said having a smoke free city would be helpful to everyone.