Co-founder and Volunteer
Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes (PAVe)
Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes (PAVe) was founded in 2018 by three concerned moms — Dina Alessi, Meredith Berkman, and Dorian Fuhrman — as a grassroots response to the youth vaping epidemic.
The catalyst was the women's discovery in April, 2018 that a JUUL representative had entered their sons’ high-school through an outside anti-addiction group, and, without the school’s knowledge, repeatedly told an assembly of 9th-grade students that JUUL was “totally safe”. (Their Congressional testimony about this incident was cited by FDA and others as evidence that JUUL marketed directly to teens.)
Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes has become an influential advocacy and education nonprofit run and powered by passionate volunteers across the country, the national parent voice fighting the predatory behavior of Big Tobacco. PAVe parents advocate at the local, state, and national levels for ending the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes and all menthol and other flavored tobacco products. PAVe provides free resources, training, and materials that empower parents to educate others in their own communities about the dangers of youth vaping.