The RAT® Pack came to New Albany Elementary School

New Albany, MS– The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi’s fun and entertaining educational troupe performed LIVE with TERRANCE THE RAT for NAES 2^nd and 3^rd graders! 

Jackson, Miss.—The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi sent out the Reject All Tobacco (RAT) Pack to New Albany Elementary School on August 18, 2016. The RAT Pack will be touring nearly 70 schools statewide this year. The educational troupe reaches thousands of elementary students through its clever performances and teaches them to “Reject All Tobacco”.

NAES K-6 students learn about the dangers of tobacco use.

The teenage performance group is led by Terrance the Rat and their performances target children in grades K-6. Terrance encourages the students to “Tell Somebody” about the dangers of tobacco usage, exposure to secondhand smoke, and electronic nicotine delivery systems products. RAT Pack performances are interactive and teach health lessons in an entertaining way for the students. Mississippi artists have helped to provide their support of tobacco-free lifestyles in children by writing the lyrics and music for all of the songs used during the performances.

According to Penny Creekmore, one of the school nurses at New Albany Elementary, “Our elementary students enjoyed the interactive performance of these high school students. One 3^rd grader remarked after the program that he didn’t know that ‘electronic cigarettes’ have nicotine in them and are bad for you. Now he does.”

“The teens have a lot of fun performing for the various schools,” said Suzanne Ellis, Youth Programs Director for the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. “But the greatest part of performing is in knowing that we are impacting the lives of these children and the future choices they will make.”

RAT is funded by a grant from the Mississippi State Department of Health.