Five Bradford Area High School students and their teacher went
to Harrisburg April 25-26 to participate in Youth Quest 2006: Shoe
Campaign: Stomping Out Big Tobacco, where more than 20,000 shoes
were placed on the steps of the Pennsylvania Capitol building.

The students included 11th grader Olivia Brown, 10th graders
Amanda Mezzelo and Tosha Reynolds and 9th graders Sam Keyes and
Tayler Lunn, and the teacher was Margie Brown. All the students are
in both Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) and Students
Advocating Life Without Substance Abuse (SALSA).

Olivia Brown said Monday that part of the reason they were
chosen to go on the trip was because they were involved with both
SADD and SALSA and they all turned in completed applications to
attend the event. They were chosen because they were the only five
students that applied; there was a maximum of five students that
were being accepted to attend.

The five students were part of a larger group of 1,000 high
school and college students from across the state gathered at the
event to bring awareness of tobacco-related deaths across the
Commonwealth. The larger, local group attending the event included
students from Port Allegany, St. Marys, Kane, Coudersport and
Smethport, and Brown said there were all different types of
students gathered for this single interest.

Mezzelo explained that before the event, each student was to
collect as many pairs of shoes as possible, and announcements were
made to help gather the shoes. Youth from across the state also
helped collect shoes.

The target collection goal was 20,000 pairs of shoes. The 20,000
represents the number of adults in Pennsylvania that die each year
from tobacco-related illnesses. The students said more than 20,000
pairs of shoes were collected, and the shoes were then taken to
Harrisburg and placed on the steps of the Capitol April 26 to
educate state legislators on the impact of tobacco in
Pennsylvania.

Brown explained there were little walkways set up between rows
of shoes on the steps of the Capitol.

“I didn’t think 20,000 pairs of shoes would be a lot,” Mezzelo
said. “I have 30 pairs at my house. But it was a lot. You couldn’t
even walk there. One person could fit in the walkways.”

“It was weird,” Brown said. “They (the shoes) were piled up on
top of each other.”

“If people were actually in those shoes, they would be on top of
each other,” Mezzelo said, citing that the shoes were piled up. “It
was almost like the Holocaust.”

Brown also compared the shoes piled on the steps to shoes piled
up at the Holocaust Museum.

Lunn said there were boxes and bags of shoes, and students
helped bag and package them after the event so they could be taken
for donations to The Salvation Army throughout the state.

Before the students placed the shoes on the steps at the
Capitol, students marched to the steps carrying a pair of shoes.
Brown said they also had selected student speakers reading letters
written by individuals across the state and telling stories about
how tobacco-related illness has affected their lives. Many letters
dealt with the loss of family members and friends that have died
from tobacco use.

More than 40 students and leaders from Cameron, Elk, McKean and
Potter counties at the event talked to state Rep. Martin Causer,
R-Turtlepoint, who asked the students questions about what they
were doing on their visit to Harrisburg and their views on tobacco
in Pennsylvania. The group presented Causer with a book containing
stories of people across the state who have lost friends and loved
ones to tobacco-related illness.

The Bradford students all said Monday there were a lot of
smokers that were watching at the event and didn’t realize what
they’re doing to themselves. Mezzelo talked about a woman near them
at the event that was smoking, and when the students had asked the
woman to put out her cigarette, she refused, saying it was her
decision to smoke. The students wanted to give the woman a shoe and
say it was her life.

Brown said they want people to know just how easy it is to get
hooked on tobacco and how people don’t realize how dangerous it is.
She said people who use tobacco don’t realize how they effect the
people around them with things like second-hand smoke that are
hurting other people and themselves.

Reynolds also said people don’t realize how many deaths are
caused by tobacco.

Lindie Gnan, tobacco control coordinator for Elk and McKean
counties, said she hopes the impact of the event will stay with the
students for a long time and the image of all the shoes
representing those that others have lost was very overwhelming and
emotional.

There was no cost to the students or to the school to attend.
The youth’s attendance was sponsored by the United Way and Alcohol
and Drug Abuse Services Inc., in conjunction with the Pennsylvania
Department of Health, Elk County Cancer and Tobacco Coalition,
McKean County Tobacco Coalition, McKean County Collaborative Board
and Elk County Family Resource Network Youth Committee.