Any teenager with an inkling of curiosity about what he or she will look like at 50 — both as a smoker and as a nonsmoker — can find out Wednesday.

Age-progression software is just one of the “extras” that will be offered at a Kick Butts Day dodgeball tournament set to take place from 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday at Civic Arena. The event, which costs $3 per person or $15 per five-person team, is part of the Smokebusters program funded by a Heartland Foundation grant through the St. Joseph-Buchanan County Health Department.

“It’s a way to have fun and present a message,” said Nancy Taylor, a St. Joseph-Buchanan County Health Department public information officer. “We hope to generate some conversation among kids.”

Providing students with a platform to talk to their peers about the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke is central to the Smokebusters program, which just began its second three-year cycle in Northwest Missouri. During its first cycle from 2005 to 2007, Smokebusters had teams in about 20 schools throughout the region — most of which passed policies to make their campuses smoke-free.

In addition to promoting policy changes like this, Smokebusters teaches students to present messages to audiences within their community, as well as to government officials and the media.

“These students stepped out of their comfort zones, and through this program, they made a difference not only in their own lives, but also in the lives of their peers,” said Jamie Baker, Smokebusters’ coordinator for Northwest Missouri and a communication policy specialist for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. “We know second-hand smoke kills, and by making their school grounds smoke-free, they’re protecting themselves.”

Some schools in the program, including Benton High School in St. Joseph, already had smoke-free campuses and therefore didn’t focus as much on policy change. But Benton students involved in Smokebusters did make an effort to make an impression in the minds of their fellow students and the community — sometimes without saying a word.

“They lined 1,400 shoes along the side of a street to show how many people in Missouri die from smoking and second-hand smoke each month, and people stopped to ask what it was about,” school counselor and Smokebusters mentor Casey Arambula said. “I think that made them think people were getting it.”

Even after completing their Smokebusters program, the team at Benton continues to participate in events like Kick Butts Day, and Mrs. Baker hopes the event at Civic Arena will encourage more students to become involved in Smokebusters. The grant money for this cycle is enough for teams at 20 schools, she said, and Smokebusters is in only 12 now.

“It’s an excellent program,” she said. “Some kids, when they start it, don’t have a lot of direction. But after going through Smokebusters, they’ve really grown a lot.”

Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.