PITTSTON — Fifth-grade artists — all 168 of them — were recognized May 25 at Pittston Area Middle School.
That number represents the fifth-grade students who participated in Geisinger Health System’s inagural medication disposal poster contest, held in cooperation with Pittston Area Senior High School Leo Club and Pittston Area Middle School educators Aryanna Davis and Abby Wruble.
Students were tasked with creating posters that promoted proper disposal of leftover medications, a topic Davis was initially apprehensive about covering with such a young demographic. She and Wruble, a health teacher at the school, framed the topic using the subjects they taught.
“I presented it as part of my illustration lesson and focused on pollution and misuse of medication by people and animals,” Davis said, explaining how she worked the subject into her curriculum.
According to Geisinger, over 250 million pounds of medication go unused every year and improper disposal can harm wildlife or contimate water.
Taryn O’Malley’s poster was chosen as the grand prize winner. It featured an anthropromorphic red-and-yellow pill holding a sign and throwing away a prescription bottle.
“I just thought about what we were learning about, the pills and medications, and I just thought of it holding a sign saying what to do with it,” Taryn said. “I didn’t really think I would win. I thought the ones before me were better.”
Taryn received a plaque and a $50 gift card. Two other students, Catherine Galonis and Kylie Doran, received plaques and $25 gift cards. Their posters was also framed and presented to them during the May 25 assembly.
Eric Wright, senior investigator and director at Geisinger’s Center for Pharmacy Innovation and Outcomes, said the poster contest was also created as a way to fight the rise in opioid abuse.
“One of the biggest things going on in our area and around the country is the overpopulation of the opioid epidemic, and much of that starts with pills lying around the house,” Wright said. “We wanted to start with the idea that unused medications are things that you don’t want to get involved with and, when you see them, you want to dispose of them, but there’s a proper way to do so.”
On its end, Geisinger is making proper disposal easier by installing a number of disposal stations at Northeastern Pennsylvania locations. Currently, Greater Pittston’s only station is located at Weis Market, 70 Phoenix St., Duryea, but Wright said Geisinger plans to install more stations throughout its coverage area.
Medications should be dropped at the station in containers and labels with identifiers like names or addresses should be removed. Wright hopes the students take these messages home and begin to change the community’s attitude toward leftover medicine.
“When you get into fourth, fifth, sixth grade maybe it’s not so big of an issue, but when you get to be a little bit older than that, people start experimenting with medications,” Wright said. “We want to make sure that they’re out of homes. We felt that this was a good age that kids can influence their family and family can look at it from a new perspective: that their kids are getting older and they don’t want to be a part of that.”
Wright said his office hopes to continue confronting the issue through similar contests in other school districts, but understands the trepidation that accompanies the subject matter. Davis suggested educators approach the subject as both a life lesson and a lesson in communication through creativity.
“Consider it as a way to expose your kids and link the way art communicates messages,” Davis said.
The artistic communication created by Pittston Area Middle School students will be displayed at area Geisinger locations.
