For his Public Communication Capstone Project, PCOM Senior Marcus Aloisi partnered with the Burlington Partnership for a Healthy Community to help launch their tobacco prevention campaign, BHS Elevate, at Burlington High School. The capstone project, led by Community Development and Applied Economics Lecturer Ben Dangl, gives public communication students the opportunity to work with nonprofit and municipal community partners, to develop professional level communications strategies and materials. Aloisi, along with Chantal Finley, also a PCOM student, conducted interviews with high school and UVM students to create a sense of understanding between high school and college age tobacco use.
“I had no idea the capstone project would land me in front of legislators and representatives, talking to them about why they should pass bill S.18,” said Aloisi. On that January afternoon, he was sitting in the crowded conference room in Montpelier with the Vermont House Committee on Human Services. Aloisi, a first-generation college student who was born and raised in Vermont, was giving testimony on behalf of youth and young adults across Vermont to support an act banning flavored tobacco products and e-liquids in the state.
“What we found was astonishing,” wrote Aloisi about the information he gathered from interviewing high school and college aged students about their use of flavored tobacco. “Students understood how bad these tobacco products are for you. Yet, when questioned further, almost everyone we interviewed had some level of experience with vapes.” The findings prompted Aloisi to write op-eds for newsletters across Vermont and Northern New Hampshire discussing the public health issue. The articles caught the attention of State Representative Theresa Wood, chair of the House Committee on Human Services, who invited Aloisi to come to the committee meeting and testify.
“It’s not enough to offer the resources to quit. You have to get rid of the source: flavored tobacco products.” Aloisi shared his experience growing up in the Green Mountain state as well as more recent experience of seeing middle school students who were experts on the flavors, the devices and the costs.
At the end of his testimony, committee members commended Aloisi on the importance and value of his testimony for developing the youth voice for bill S.18. “You helped us meet the gap in whom we’re hearing from,” said Representative Anne B. Donahue.