RUMFORD – Thomas Williams has watched grandparents die from smoking-related illnesses. He doesn’t want that to happen to other family members, his friends, or anyone else. “It’s really sad seeing someone die because of smoking,” the 16-year-old said. That’s why when he heard about a national movement called Ignite, which is made up of young people who lobby Washington legislators on the ills of smoking, he jumped at the chance to start a local group. In fact, Ignite Oxford County, headed by Williams, is only the 11th nationwide and the first in the state.

He got the idea when he attended a Maine Youth Action Network summit in Bar Harbor last April.

On Thursday, the group will hold its first meeting, at Mountain Valley High School.

Anyone age 13 to 24 is invited. Thomas hopes to enlist the help of adults in fund-raising activities.

For now, the fledgling local organization is using a $100 mini-grant from the central Ignite headquarters to fund activities that will make people aware of the dangers of cigarette smoking and efforts to lobby Congress for tobacco-related laws.

All this week, a poster with the number 1,200 is appearing throughout the high school in classrooms, on doors, in bathrooms. On Friday, its meaning will be revealed when that poster is replaced with “the number of people who die everyday from smoking-related illnesses.”

The group also plans to protest the dozens of chemicals mixed with tobacco in cigarettes by displaying “arsenic lollipops” along Falls Hill in Rumford from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Feb. 19. Then, on Feb. 21, the group will ring a bell or hit a gong every 72 seconds in front of Dick’s Restaurant in Mexico to show that one person dies every 72 seconds in the United States from smoking-related causes.

Williams is also involved in Students Working Against Tobacco, or SWAT, the high school’s civil rights team, and is a Peer Helper.

He said Ignite aims to help circulate a petition that would force a state referendum that would ban smoking in cars with children under age 18. Nationally, he said the group is lobbying for federal regulation of cigarettes.

His brothers, twins Jacob and Nick, 12, and in the seventh-grade at Mountain Valley Middle School, are also involved in the Ignite chapter.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for kids to get active,” said Nick. “Not many kids think about smoking. This gets them to think about it.”

Once Williams gets the local group organized, he hopes to take a PowerPoint presentation out on the road to area high schools to encourage them to start their own group.

Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or by phoning 369-9147.