Crave’s Tobacco Free Sports Tournament

On September 13^th and 14^th crave participated in the Oakville Soccer Cup running a tobacco free sports event. We partnered with the Oakville soccer club creating a positive ally. It was a boys and girl’s youth end of the year tournament. We set up our booth in the front entrance of the main field. There many youth there along with their parents and siblings. We handed out promotional items such as; mini soccer balls, puzzles and frisbees. As well we asked youth over the age of thirteen and there parents to fill out a community readiness survey in order to gage how supportive they were of the issue of tobacco use in sports and recreation. In return for filling out a community readiness survey we gave parents and youth thunder sticks and t-shirts displaying our key messages. A few of our key messages for this event were “Don’t fall for the tobacco industries trick plays” as well as “Tobacco free sports is another piece of protective equipment.” Our key messages were developed through the Central West Youth Coalition as this was a central west wide event. That means that groups like crave from across central western Ontario held events like ours. This was a very successful event and we hope to partner with the Oakville Soccer club on more activities in the future.   

chelsea and alex.