Coordinating a Tar Wars Program in Your Community

Coordinating a Tar Wars program in your community is easy. We have information to help you get your program started. We encourage you to always stay in touch with your state/regional coordinator and check with them about state poster contest deadlines, prizes and other state-level activites.

You may want to consider forming a team to help you implement and run the program. Look for individuals who will contribute a well-rounded effort and represent a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.

Divide large tasks into smaller assignments and delegate them to team members. For example, organizing your community’s poster contest can be broken down into pieces such as tracking poster submissions, selecting judges, securing prizes, and sending thank you cards.

If forming a team is not possible or feasible, decide which tasks are most important to the program and use the same approach of dividing them into manageable pieces that can be organized into a checklist from highest to lowest priority. Try to remember that one person cannot do it all, so set goals for yourself to accomplish.

Getting organized will go a long way to starting your local Tar Wars program. Know what Tar Wars is so you can sell the program to schools, potential presenters, and others in your community from whom you may be seeking funding or contest prizes. Use your local media to get the word out about Tar Wars.

The first step to implementing Tar Wars in your community is inviting schools in your community to participate in the program and identify potential presenters. Although Tar Wars can be presented anytime during the academic year, it’s best to start your communications with schools and potential presenters no later than October, if possible.

To avoid duplicating efforts, please contact your Tar Wars state coordinator to find out if they have already made contact with any schools or potential presenters in your area. If not, initiate contact yourself and explain how to access the online program guide, which outlines responsibilities, time requirements, etc. Be sure to explain that being a presenter is a volunteer effort, not a paid position, and that there is no charge to the school for their classroom presentation.

If you don’t have a group of presenters lined up, consider talking with family physicians, medical schools or residency programs, dentists, or others in your community about presenting. Don’t forget about school nurses, parents, and teachers, too. Although the majority of presenters are health care professionals, anyone with a passion for children’s health or a vested interest in teaching children to be tobacco-free can present the program. A slideshow is available in either PDF (26-page PDF file; About PDFs) or PowerPoint (2650 KB PowerPoint; About Downloading) format to help you train potential presenters.

You may also want to consider offering Tar Wars presentations or promoting the program in conjunction with other organized community efforts, such as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Kick Butts Day (March), Red Ribbon Week (October), National Health Education Week (October), and the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout (November).

A written thank you letter or email note sent to all participants aids in the ongoing success of your community’s Tar Wars program. These do not need to be formal, just concise in content, personalized to your audience, and leave participants with a great feeling about their participation in the program. Publicly praise individuals and/or groups who helped to make your program a success. Remember, you can never thank people enough.

In addition, you can attend professional meetings throughout the year to thank, summarize, and recruit. Bring photos and other information with you to share. If possible, send an inexpensive prize to all students who entered a poster in your contest.

In addition, please encourage your presenters and teachers to submit the online presentation questionnaire following their classroom presentation. These forms are used by your Tar Wars state coordinators to gain an understanding of how both the teacher and presenter deem the Tar Wars program as well as their classroom presentation. The forms also serve as a communication vehicle for suggesting changes or revisions to the program guide or program implementation and delivery.