This Arizona Teen Organized a Huge PKL Party & Presentation

Meet Nicole, better known by her friends and family in her Arizona hometown as “Coco.”

Coco is one of those people that radiates passion and enthusiasm. She’s a Fighter that’s been a hugely active part in the movement for the last few years! Thanks to her, Nicole’s school and community are repping the movement loud and proud because of the work she’s done to get the word out about Fight the New Drug and the #PornKillsLove movement.

The start of a local movement

A few years ago, Nicole first found Fight the New Drug when she was doing a research project for her English class. She did a quick Google search on porn’s effects and found our page.

“Right away, Fight the New Drug popped up at the top of the page,” Nicole said. “Naturally, I clicked the top one because that’s usually the website that will help the most. My first reaction was, Wow, my whole entire research paper is literally on this website so thank you to whoever created this because now this is going to be a piece of cake! Then, I started reading and watching videos, and reading more, and clicking more, and more, and I couldn’t stop. The next thing I knew, I had been on the website for like 5 hours!”

Related: Movement On The Move: Teen Drummer Reps ‘Porn Kills Love’ Tee On Tour (PHOTOS)

After that night, she became passionate about the cause. Nicole’s dedication to the movement grew so much, she couldn’t contain it just for herself. She had to take action and spread the movement to her family, school, and community.

But it wasn’t always easy to spread the word about the harms of porn.

An uphill battle

As a graduating senior in high school, she was made fun of by her classmates and friends when she became outspoken on the issue—because porn is normal, right? Nope, of course not.

When she tried to get Fight the New Drug to come to her school, she heard a lot of negative feedback from other students and teachers. She says she was trash-talked over social media, but the negative feedback wasn’t just online. Nicole’s house also got toilet-papered, and she got prank calls where people would call her on an unknown number and then say things about porn and then hang up. She told us she even got aggressively cornered by a guy at her prom who got up in her face.

She told us that she was called a “porn star” at least once a day at school, and the jokes just went on and on. At first, she was discouraged, but she always remembered why this movement is so important.

Related: Fighter Spotlight: This Fighter Walked 500 Miles Across Europe With PKL Tee To Fight Porn

“So many people kept telling me that pornography wasn’t a big deal, and that it shouldn’t matter this much to me. These comments just pushed me even further to fight for people to be educated.”

Getting the word out

Then, things started changing. Nicole realized that as some people would make fun of her, it raised a lot of questions from others at school who were curious or who would stand up for her. The more people were educated, the more people wanted to join the movement.

Related: The Ripple Effect: How One Fighter’s Action Can Inspire Big Change

She reached out to the kids in her school who had large followings on social media, and had a few photoshoots with Fighter gear to get the word out about the porn kills love movement. This helped even more kids hear about the issue and start having conversations. But while the word was spreading, her school’s administration took a hard pass on having a presentation about porn.

Finally, Nicole took another route by planning a weekend presentation at a venue outside of her school. To fundraise, Coco hosted a dance party the night before the presentation with all the kids in her school who were down with the movement!

On the night of the presentation, over 200 people came out to show support and listen to Fight the New Drug’s assembly presentation. Nicole stood before the audience to introduce our presenter, and she did an amazing job coordinating the entire event. All this from a 17-year-old high school student.

It was worth it

Through the teasing and the administrative difficulties with getting FTND in her school, Nicole was relentless in getting the word out about the movement. Despite the negativity from so many people, we think it’s amazing how she pushed through and spread awareness in her community. This girl is what the movement is all about!

“I really hope I made a difference,” Nicole told us. “I think the coolest part for me has been to see kids I don’t even know walk around my school wearing Fight the New Drug apparel and bracelets, or hear people making comments about the events we had, or hear people talking about the video we made. I went into this not expecting anything, but it has been awesome to hear from different people how this affected them, and how grateful they are they found FTND’s website.”

Coco loves the phrase, “Change begins with one,” and we think she lives it out really well:

“I knew going into this whole project that I could only affect one person in the end, but in the end, that would be worth it for me. I love the people around me and I would give up everything just to help one person!”

Get Involved

Nicole’s story is just one out of millions of Fighters around the globe. You can have the same impact in your school/community. SHARE this article, and have FTND present in your school!

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Spark Conversations

This movement is all about changing the conversation about pornography and stopping the demand for sexual exploitation. When you rep a tee, you can spark meaningful conversation on porn’s harms and inspire lasting change in individuals’ lives, and our world. Are you in?