Mid-school students visit state Legislature

Sen. David Ulibarri stands with Grants Future Foundations Family Center Youth Council students Mariah Gonzales, Cassandra Lopez, Amy Padilla and Sarah Mirabal during a visit to the state legislature last week. The students were on a mission to attempt to acquire additional funding for the anti-tobacco campaign in Grants. [Courtesy Photo]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Four members of the Future Foundations Family Center Youth Council visited the state Legislature last week.

Jolene Gonzales, a youth council advisor for the center, said the trip was an attempt to secure additional funding for the anti-tobacco campaign in Grants.

Cassandra Lopez, 13, a fifth-grader at Los Alamitos Middle School in Grants, said she went as part of the council to show the legislators, “We care and we want to help the community.”

Additionally, she said she wanted to see what they did as legislators.

“We went to the Senate and the state House, there was not a lot of difference in how they worked on bills,” she said.

“I told Senator Ulibarri that we need more fruits and vegetables at our schools because there are too many kids that are obese. There is 70 percent obesity in our schools,” she said.

“A lot of kids in the seventh- and eighth-grades smoke at our school and their parents and grandparents are getting sick from it,” she said.

Mariah Gonzales, 11, a sixth-grade pupil at Mesa View Elementary School, said it was fun to speak to the legislators.

“It is really good because they make decisions in bills and I also told them all that we need more fruits and vegetables in our schools,” she said.

“Did you know that every time someone purchases Kraft macaroni and cheese, or any other Kraft product, part of that money goes to the company that makes cigarettes is the same company,” she said.

“I am not going to smoke because you get sick and die younger, I am not going to die younger,” she said.

Jolene Gonzales said this year the center is seeking $60,000, a $4,000 in crease above last year in anti-tobacco funding.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.