A group of nursing students from Champlain College in St. Lambert, Que., south of Montreal has gone viral.
What started as a simple message for a class project two days ago has exploded in popularity, thanks to social media.
“I’m still surprised myself,” laughed third-year nursing student Elizabeth Marchand. “I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.”
On Wednesday, the third-year class set up kiosks at the school as part of classwork to promote good health practices.
One group of six picked an anti-vaping campaign as their message.
“What vape really does to the body, what kinds of ingredients are in the vape, and that overall it’s not healthy,” explained student Joanne Ouo.
The plan, in addition to giving information, was to bribe vapers with donuts in exchange for their vape pens.
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It shocked them that it even worked.
“Who would give out a vape that cost $30 for a $2 donut?” Ouo laughed.
The bigger shock, though, came later.
Program coordinator Paul Brisson recorded the campaigns and shared the videos on TikTok Wednesday afternoon.
“I said to the college it would be nice if we can get 25,000 views,” the former emergency room nurse told Global News.
But the online response exceeded his expectations. By supper time that day it had 15,000 views. By Friday afternoon, according to the college, the view tally had reached a million.
Brisson and the students are still trying to figure out why.
“I think the one hashtag that made it all was “#vapingforlife,” he reasoned. “Basically this is a hashtag to promote vaping, but we went against it.”
Others think the idea of swapping a vape pen for a donut created the buzz.
“So I think people were arguing,” said Ariane Grenier, another of the students involved. “Some people were saying, ‘oh it’s a good idea’ and some people are like, ‘I will not trade a vape for a donut.'”
Whatever the reason, that video and the nursing program’s three-week-old TikTok page are both surging in popularity. The account now has more than 84,000 likes, a sign, Brisson believes, that the population does value nurses.
He said the success has even sparked conversations about the possibility of growing the school’s 120-student programme.
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