Action Tips: Organize a Beach Party in Your School Gym to Promote Awareness About Tanning Dangers

An indoor beach party is an innovative way to inform people about the dangers of sun tanning both outdoors and on a bed!

Get the okay

• You have to make sure that the people in charge at school are okay with your plans.
• Get a teacher on board (health teacher maybe) before you ask the principal because having a teacher on your side will probably sway the decision.

Decide on a day

• Think about what day would work best. You probably want to do this before prom and beach season so you can arm your peers with this important info BEFORE they plan on going out and frying themselves.
• Check the school/gym calendar to make sure there are no games, sports team practices or other events going on in the gym that could conflict with your event.

Get some equipment

• Sand may be out of the question (I mean, who’s gonna clean it up?) but maybe you can get a local party rental store to loan you some beach chairs and tables… Tell them it’s for a good cause!
• Ask your friends and teachers to bring their beach chairs in for the day.

Décor matters

• See if your local craft store will donate some shells or go to the beach and get some!!! Randomly place them on tables.
• Your friends probably have beach umbrellas, sand buckets and other beach accessories hanging around the house or garage. See if they’ll lend them for the day.
• Use what you have to create a beach atmosphere:
• Make chair covers out of large beach towels.
• Have beach pails filled with sand or shells dotting walkways.
• Get your team together to make palm trees, sand castles, sea birds and other ocean stuff out of construction paper. You can also create a beach scene complete with blue water with that same construction paper. (Get the supplies donated by the art department!)
• Encourage everyone to come in beach attire. Suggest Hawaiian shorts, T-shirts, skorts, and sandals.

Feed them

• Food is a great way to get people to come to your event! Get your friends together to cook some great snacks or make it a potluck!
• Visit a local bakery and/or grocery store and see if they’ll donate some goodies for your cause. Just be sure that when you make the ask, you’re armed with information on the bad sun tanning habits of teens. This will convince them that your event is necessary.

Party the favors

• See if a party store will donate some fake sunglasses and seashell earrings.

Don’t forget the message

• Create signs with facts about the dangers of sun tanning and frequenting tanning salons.
• Use lots of color, images and large print to grab attention.
  Post them around the entrance, exit and the entire gym.
• Don’t let people walk out empty handed!
• See if you local drug store will donate some self-tanning products to provide safe tanning options.
• As they leave, hand them a list of facts and safe options.