Stand Tall’s Cimberlyn Andrus among speakers at NCIAA Celebration

Media and the public are invited to attend the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act (NCIAA) being held at the Nevada Room at the Governor’s Mansion in Carson City on December 8, 2016 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event is being hosted by the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition (NTPC). To register for this free event and luncheon, contact Amber Greene at agreene@lungs.org or 702-948-4160. Participation is limited to the first 150 registrants.

Silver Stage High student Cimberlyn Andrus, on behalf of Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey’s Stand Tall, will be among the speakers at the event. She will address the importance of tobacco awareness. Nine additional Stand Tall team members from Yerington, Fernley, Dayton and Silver Springs, and two of HCC’s certified community health workers, Kathy McIntosh and Tammy Sutton, will also attend.

The NCIAA was passed by a majority of Nevada voters in 2006. It led to substantial changes to Nevada smoking laws and protects children and adults from secondhand smoke in most public places and indoor places of employment. The U.S. Surgeon General has determined secondhand smoke to be a cause of cancer, heart, lung and other chronic diseases that can result in death and that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

The Anniversary Celebration of the NCIAA will provide an opportunity to reflect on the impact of this major public health victory over the past decade, as well as to assess the unfinished business of tobacco control efforts in Nevada. Guest speakers will include policymakers and advocates, who have been instrumental in advancing smoke-free and other tobacco prevention efforts in the Silver State.

The following Stand Tall youth leaders will attend the NCIAA celebration event at the Governor’s Mansion: Cimberlyn Andrus, Ileen Tracy, Linnea Sutton, Ann Marie Fimby, from Silver Stage High; Destiny Gilbert and Jacob Pry-Were from Dayton High; Christina Hegstad and Kevin Smith from Yerington High; and Savannah Clark and Kennedy Lyon-Lindersmit from Fernley High.

Stand Tall teams in each high school in Lyon are part of Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties. These young leaders learn skills such as public speaking, and work with their schools and communities to prevent alcohol, tobacco, prescription and other drug use and to promote good nutrition, mental health and physical fitness. The teams also take on a number of projects every year to serve their communities, such as coat, shoe and food drives. Stand Tall teams help raise funds for their teams by providing face painting and other services at community events. Stand Tall sponsors 5K Walk/Run events to promote fitness and to raise funds for their annual scholarships for students from each high school in Lyon County.

Stand Tall teams’ energetic work to promote health and wellness among their school peers and in their communities is part of Healthy Communities’ regional Health Hub, a network that includes promotion of healthy lifestyles, drug use prevention and cost-effective, coordinated health care service delivery. Many groups and individuals, working together strategically, are expanding access to dental, medical, vision and behavioral health care and wellness education in rural Lyon and Storey Counties.

For more information about Stand Tall, contact Healthy Communities Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Prevention Coordinator, Tammy Sutton at 246-7550.