Vape disposal boxes coming to Indiana middle school next year

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Shawnee Middle School students, parents and teachers crowded the school gym to celebrate artists’ hard work after submitting anti-vaping artwork and videos.

The event is part of the National Parent Teacher Association: the Healthy Bodies – Tobacco Prevention Campaign. Shawnee Middle School received the grant, $1,500, for the second year in a row. Money was put towards prizes, motivating 40 to 50 student artists to craft their own fliers and six student videographers to edit their own videos.

Seventh grader Ethan Fritzel won the video competition last year. This year, he hopes to win with a short film on secondhand smoking.

“I have some people in my life that [vape] and I’m trying to [get them to stop],” Fritzel said. “I’ve heard that no one really knows the consequences of vaping until it’s too late.”

This year, the Fort Wayne Area Council PTA is also celebrating the beginning of another longer-term initiative poised to give students in Fort Wayne Community Schools, or FWCS, vaping amnesty.

Janelle Tulley, Fort Wayne Area Council PTA treasurer, said the PTA is working to install vape disposal boxes in FWCS. Tulley said she submitted a proposal for the boxes to Fort Wayne businessman Chuck Surack. Within the hour, he agreed to donate $2,500 to place one box in FWCS middle schools and two in the high schools.

Each box has numbers for EXPROGRAM and Tobacco Free Allen County on the front. Shawnee Middle School’s box will be located on the first floor, near the front of the building in between the men’s and women’s restrooms.

“It’s also tamper proof,” Tulley said. “Once they put it in, they’re not getting it back.”

Through researching ways to decrease vaping in kids and teens, Tulley said she noted other schools across the country have seen success with similar drop boxes. This includes one school system in Springfield, Missouri, where school staff collected 734 vapes in one school year.

According to the Indiana Department of Health, one in 50 state middle schoolers- and one in 10 Hoosier high schoolers- currently use electronic cigarettes. Principal David Tijerina said each week, his staff is catching someone with a vape. He said installing the boxes is part of the solution to the vaping ‘pandemic’.

“Maybe someone just doesn’t want [a vape] in their possession,” Tijerina said. “Maybe someone is facing addiction and they want to stop. [The box] is designed for them to go ahead and [throw away the vape] without any repercussions. We have kids bringing them in on a daily basis … if we can provide them a safe place for them to drop their vape … we want to be able to provide that.”

Tulley said Shawnee Middle School’s box will be installed by the end of the school year. The remaining boxes will be in the 2025-2026 school year.