Student organizers of the Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer (CAC) united Thursday to encourage others to quit smoking as part of the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smoke Out, an annual event that takes place on the third Thursday in November.

“It is a national quit-day so that anyone interested in quitting has the entire nation behind them,” CAC President Sarah Cohen ’11 said. “Quitting is difficult to do, and it’s important to have a support system, so what better support system could there be than the entire United States?”

During the Great American Smoke- Out, CAC also informed students about the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke, like lung cancer. As part of this initiative, the club put signs on the walkway between the library and the Shapiro Campus Center with facts about smoking’s dangers.

The club also took steps to combat smoking on campus. At Brandeis it is illegal to smoke within 30 feet of any building, but because the distance is “hard to eyeball,” the club used chalk to designate smoke-free zones near popular smoking spots like the library and Usdan, Cohen said.

“We still have a large group on campus that smokes and that’s a problem,” Cohen said. “The younger you are when you start smoking, the more difficult it is to stop, so college-age adults are important to teach about the dangers of their practices so it’s not a life-long problem.”

Other events organized by CAC are Paint the Campus Pink week, which was in early October, and Relay for Life, which takes place in the spring.