2018 MAPP Classroom Visits

May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month as well as the month that officially kicks of summer. Therefore, it is the month every year that I try to really push MAPP and be an advocate for skin cancer awareness. This May, I traveled to many school districts in Arkansas speaking to students of all ages. This was very important to me because in years past I mainly focused on the high school age students, since they were the ones most likely to use a tanning bed and lay out in the sun to get a tan intentionally.

However, I quickly realized the younger generation is eager to learn and listen...especially to a "real princess" as they called me. At this age, they are so impressionable and its important to make good impressions on them that they carry throughout life. I was able to find several different books on skin cancer that were written by survivors like myself. These books were a great tool in teaching them about sun safety in ways they understood without getting too much into the scary "cancer" side of it.

I was able to reach students from pre-school age all the way through high school. The photo above is from a very special school in Arkansas because one of my 2018 MAPP Queens attends there, and she helped me give my presentation.