Not Just a Pretty Face by Stacy Malkan

Author:Stacy Malkan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HEA003000
ISBN: 9781550923520
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2007-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

Because We’re Worth It Too!

Teenagers have a certain way of just cutting to the chase. “It’s disgusting that women can get rid of our toxins by passing them on to our babies,” said Jessica Assaf. Before she has that experience though, Jessica plans to go to college, become a pediatric oncologist and pressure the cosmetics industry to clean up its products. On a Saturday morning in February 2006, Jessica, Heather Gellert and about 20 of their peers from various high schools in Marin County, California, stood before a crowd of mostly other teens who had traveled here to learn how to organize safe cosmetics campaigns in their own schools. In just a year, the Marin girls had accomplished a head-spinning amount with their teen-led campaign.

Two by two, the teens approached the microphone and told their story as if it was nothing at all to stand in front of a roomful of people discussing science and politics on a Saturday morning. Watching them from the audience, I felt like I’d entered an alternate universe. I didn’t even know what lobbying was when I was that age. Mine is a typical reaction. “People are just like wow. They’re not used to teens sounding like this. They’re not used to teens being as educated and as wise,” explained Judi Shils, founder of the Marin Cancer Project, where Teens for Safe Cosmetics got their start. “They’re all really pretty girls. They wear a lot of makeup; it’s a big part of their lives. When they found out their favorite products were potentially toxic, they were furious. They wanted to rattle every cage they could.”

A four-time Emmy Award-winning former television producer, Judi founded the Marin Cancer Project in 2002 after being inspired by a friend who had just completed treatment for a radical breast cancer. Marin County had the highest rates of breast cancer in the US, they learned at a county meeting. The rates had risen 60% in eight years, and nobody could explain why.1 “Here we are in one of the richest counties in the world and there’s no money for research? We’re here talking about elevated cancer rates and we don’t know why, and nothing is being done. I thought there had to be a better way to get a community to come together around these issues,” Judi explained. So, after amassing 2,000 volunteers, they went door-to-door one day in November 2002 asking people to fill out a health survey and give a dollar for cancer research. Judi wasn’t sure if residents would just slam their doors; instead, people wanted to talk and talk about their experiences with cancer. Before long the volunteers raised close to $150,000 to fund a research project to map cancer rates in the towns of Marin.2

After that Judi thought she’d move on to her next project, leaving the scientists to do their work, but in her own words “you step your foot into something and get wisdom and the support of the community, and you can’t go away.

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