Public Health has always been on some people’s minds. Is the general populace of this area well? Do they have their appropriate vaccinations, are they keeping themselves and their homes clean from mold and disease? Taking out the trash?

On January 10th, 2022, an account by the name of @wjccstudentsforchange made their first post on Instagram, introducing who they were and the messages they’d wish to spread. It boiled down to Awareness and Promotion to the Health, Safety, and Education within WJCC and its school system.

These WJCC students talk about the problems they have viewed from within one of the schools in the district resulting directly from some people’s refusal to wear face masks properly, blatantly ignoring rules and regulations.

They raise their points as a concerning danger to those with pre-existing conditions such as disabilities, immunocompromised status, and those who are chronically ill.  For these people, catching Covid could mean a death sentence.

In a follow-up post, the authors stated that they would also be reposting Covid statistics with useful information. They hoped to bring awareness to those who may have turned blind eyes, and to gain traction with more followings.

A couple hours after this first post, a wave of spam accounts blew up the comments section making jokes and attempting to rile a comment war. It took roughly two hours before the authors made a post on their story about said accounts.

They had to disable comments on the introductory post and speak about the joke making, fight starting, gaslighting comments. They were sent hateful words and even death threats. They had to repost stories, the original introduction post with comments disabled, and speak out once more. They have kept those anonymous, though screenshots have parts of the comment section and of these stories circle groups.

They continue to fight against the changes of the mask mandate, wanting to keep students having to wear them, and enforce their doing so. Consistent with their messages of masking up, they have small debates in the comments section with many choosing to fight them on their account, while some agree and speak with them against the issue they wish to fight.

With the update to the mask mandate, these students keep pushing their message of public health and safety. Recently, one anonymous poster attempted to use religion to disprove and deter others from wearing masks. Other anonymous students did their research, and respectfully disproved them with one of their own verses from the Bible. The verse in question was a Leviticus 13:45-46 passage,” Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone, they must live outside the camp.” These students know what they’re talking about, know what they believe in, and know what has to be done for good change to come.