For the past two weeks, the High School Heroes have been teaching middle school students about leading a drug free life.

“We learned about smoking and drugs. I learned not to do marijuana because it’s really bad for you and you can die, but my favorite part was touching the lung,” sixth grader, Lydia Harter said.

The Heroes, under supervision of Diana Tate, brought in various props and helped coordinate activities for the sixth graders to help spread the drug-free message. This included a comparison of a real, healthy lung and the lung of a smoker, both of which students could touch.

“The lungs were really cool, I didn’t know they could get so damaged,” sixth grader, Jenna Ernst said.

The High School Heroes program is open to sophomores, who apply in the fall, then attend a mandatory training session. It is the second tier of the Parkway Safe and Drug Free (SADF) programs, which pick out drug-free leaders starting their freshman year. These students, known better as Students Teaching About Resiliency Skills (STARS), attend a retreat known as STARS Academy as freshmen, and are invited back as sophomores to become High School Heroes.

“I think it’s better to learn from [the Heroes], because they’re younger and teachers just bore people. We can look up to the high schoolers, and they are more relatable,” sixth grader, Carly Anderson said.

The sophomores involved acted as teachers for the day, taking over health classes, but aim to play a bigger part in the future of the students, and of the Parkway community. High School Heroes visit their high schools’ feeder middle school for two sessions, and teach about the dangers of tobacco and marijuana.

“I like High School Heroes because I feel like I have a role in the sixth graders’ lives. My favorite activity to do was when we dropped BBs into tins to represent how many people die each year from smoking. It’s really powerful, I even remember when we did that activity when I was in sixth grade,” High School Hero, Hasan Baig said.

Hoping to make a positive impact on a broad audience, High School Heroes, along with the other branches of SADF, exists at every high school in the Parkway School District.

“They hope that they can touch some of the kids, and maybe if they know someone who smokes, they can talk to them about what they learned,” Parkway West SADF Building Director Tommie Rowe said.

The effects of participating in the SADF programs are long-lasting, as the students reiterate their drug-free mantra to their community every year, starting with sixth graders.

“I think it’s cool that we had High School Heroes, and now we get to be High School Heroes. I love seeing both sides of the experience, the whole thing is just great,” High School Hero Claire Crippin said.