This past week has been a kick-off to athletes giving back to the community. Serving others can be a hard yet humbling task. Many student athletes take a timeout from the field and from classes to teach elementary kids that the buff don’t puff.
The Buff Don’t Puff is a program run by the BYU athletic department encouraging elementary school students not to smoke.
Each week, several athletes go to Deerfield and other elementary schools around Utah County, getting the students to participate in fun activities. One such activity is having the kids run while breathing through a small straw to demonstrate what smoking does to one’s lungs.
During the assemblies, the number one goal for BYU baseball player Collin Braithwaite and the others is to help kids realize how drugs can negatively affect their future. Braithwaite mentioned that some of these children likely dream of playing sports for BYU in the future. Through the Buff Don’t Puff program, Braithwaite and others try to show these children how they got to the point they are at today as athletes.”We didn’t smoke or drink; that’s a big reason why we got here,” says Braithwaite.
The kids the these athletes serve are not the only ones benefitting from this exchange. Some baseball players found that lending a helping hand can be rewarding to them as well.
Colin also says, “It was just so…humbling to walk in there and just have all these screaming kids…I just thought it was way cool and it makes me kinda want to be an example for those kids.”
This small act of service has proven to be a success. The percentage of kids’ level of awareness of smoking went up by four percent this past year. With such hopeful feedback, this makes athletes like Kelsey Brown come back for more.
“It was…a really good activity. I really enjoyed it and I can see myself doing it again,” says Brown.
Many schools look forward to seeing these athletes every year. BYU athletics expects the success of Buff Don’t Puff to continue to spark the attention of these future Cougars.
