The San Jose City College Student Health Services Program received an approval totaling $100,000 over the next two years from the Pfizer Medical Education Group of New York.

The grant is approved for the program Trash The Ash, a smoking cessation program service to be offered in 2013.

“About 200 people have participated since the program started,” said smoking cessation program director for SJCC and Evergreen Valley College Janet Reid, R.N.

The smoking cessation program began in 2003 at SJCC with the help of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The current program, supported by a grant from Breathe California, offers weekly counseling sessions and a wide range of products, including lozenges, gum and toothpicks, to help with oral fixation.

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the American College of Chest Physicians were some of the other applicants for the grant; SJCC was the only college in the country that was approved.

Currently, Reid gives her participants her personal phone number for people to use when they are in need of some counseling off campus.

The new grant will be used to provide more on-campus hours for Reid to work with participants and help improve the awareness of the program in the community.

“We will be reaching out to some of the other programs, such as EMT, nursing and cosmetology, to help spread the word,” Reid said.

The grant will also assist in developing and passing a district-wide no-smoking policy.

“I am really excited,” Reid said. “Helping people quit is something very important to me because of the damage it does, and the damage it does to surrounding people.”

For more information, call Student Health Services at 408- 288-3724.