How local Cub Scouts collaborated with Johnson County to make North Liberty parks tobacco-free

If you wonder why you've seen less smoking and cigarette butts around North Liberty parks, thank Cub Scout BSA Troop 270.

Troop 270 is an all-girl troop made up of children from Coralville, Iowa City and North Liberty. The troop, alongside Johnson County Public Health educator Susan Vileta, researched and gathered information about the dangers of smoking and using tobacco and nicotine in parks.

The scouts went before the North Liberty Parks and Recreation Commission in January to present their findings. The North Liberty City Council unanimously passed the ordinance in April.

“I was a bit nervous, but also excited," said Audrey Egge, a member of Troop 270. "But it felt good knowing that, even if it didn’t get passed, that I at least tried to make some difference.

“It’s important because we are going to be the future people leading both local politics and regional and national politics, and so it's good to get the experience."

Egge hopes her troop’s collaboration with Johnson County Public Health inspires other young girls to participate in community service.

The collaboration between Vileta and Troop 270 started when Jessica Egge, a Troop parent and friend of Vileta, asked about ideas for service projects for the scouts.

Vileta said there is a statewide grant funding all 99 counties aimed to limit the use of tobacco and nicotine, called the Community Partnerships for Tobacco Prevention and Control.  

Vileta met the girls at Penn Meadows Park in late 2021 and said she was greeted with enthusiasm by the troop.

“We met at kind of an outdoor park shelter, and I just explained my work and asked them kind of what they thought of smoking and vaping and litter,” Vileta said.

After meeting Vileta, the scouts spent an hour picking up litter around Penn Meadows Park and found a significant amount of cigarette butts and vape cartridges, Egge said.

Egge’s daughter, Audrey, a freshman at Liberty High School, said she was interested in working on this project because she wants to be a wildlife veterinarian.

“One of the main things that is impacted by cigarettes and tobacco littering is wildlife, and so I find it very important that in outdoor spaces tobacco products are not allowed to be used there,” Audrey Egge said.

At 11, Egge joined the boy scouts because she wanted to interact with nature and help around her community. She joined the year girls were being allowed into the boy scouts.

Currently, Egge is working on building an enclosure for baby racoons at the Wild Thunder Wildlife and Animal Rehabilitation as her Eagle Scout project.

Unfortunately, according to Steve Rose, who was the Troop 270 leader at the time, there is no badge the girls received for their work on the anti-smoking project.

“They were probably as interested because they believed in what they were doing,” Rose said. “It was meaningful to them because it was in their own community.”

A major part of being a Cub Scout, Rose said, is volunteering and being involved in community service.

Coralville and Solon are the only cities in Johnson County without a Tobacco, Nicotine and Smoking in Parks Ordinance, Vileta said.

“It’s something that I continue to educate both of those cities about, and it’d be great to say all sorts of county parks and trails are tobacco- and nicotine-free,” Vileta said.

Vileta has worked across the county to explain the negative effects of tobacco in parks, but this was the first time she worked alongside young girls.

“It’s fun seeing kids embrace doing something where they live, and when they see those signs they can say, ‘I did this.’ So that’s my favorite part,” Vileta said.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Cub Scouts push North Liberty to get smoking ban in parks