Tanning, Sun Safety and Skin Cancer Awareness Project

The Canadian Cancer Society – Newfoundland and Labrador Division is pleased to announce its first year-long campaign to promote sun safety throughout the province.  In addition to our already-successful Summer Sun Sense drive, this awareness campaign will consist of two new components: a Tan-Free Grad challenge aimed at high school and college students and a Winter Sun Sense promotion which is being offered to school students at all grade levels as well as to the general public.

Following on the wave of publicity generated by the Canadian Cancer Society’s very successful awareness campaign of 2012 which advocated to change the province’s law regarding tanning beds, the Tan-Free Grad program is reaching out to high school students all over the province.  It is anticipated that graduating students in all of the province’s high schools and colleges will get on board and take up the challenge to stay away from tanning beds as they plan for their graduation ceremonies this coming spring.  All school district offices and high schools have been contacted, and requests for presentations are being received regularly.  Wherever possible, CCS staff or trained volunteers will visit schools to give presentations.  In areas where this is not possible, materials can be delivered to enable teachers and students to conduct the Tan-Free Grad Challenge themselves.

The Winter Sun Sense campaign aims to get the sun safety message out to locations where people are gathering to enjoy outdoor winter activities – presentations and awareness displays are on the agenda for ski and snowboarding hills, snowmobile trails and winter festivals from one end of the province to the other.

This project is being made possible through the extensive use of our Canadian Cancer Society corps of volunteers, and we are extremely grateful to have a pool of enthusiastic helpers willing to make such life-saving initiatives happen.  Thanks to the impressive groundwork already done by the Community Services team, this program is well on the way to becoming a huge success.  Funding for the project was generously provided through a grant from the Department of Health and Community Services, Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

For more information, please contact:

Darrell Yetman,

Coordinator - Tanning, Sun Safety and Skin Cancer Awareness

Canadian Cancer Society - Newfoundland and Labrador

1-709-757-8537

1-888-753-6520 ext. 237

dyetman@nl.cancer.ca