It’s not uncommon for some teens to sign abstinence pledges or pledges vowing not to drink and drive. But at one high school school in Massachusetts, students are promising to abstain from something else entirely: tanning beds.

A recent CDC survey showed that despite the risk of skin cancer, young women are still visiting tanning salons twice a month — and that’s something the upperclassmen at Maynard High School in Maynard, Mass. want to change.

Back in February, Allison Bosse, a senior, organized a pledge in which students vowed not to use tanning beds or sunbathe before this year’s prom — and it was no easy sell.

“Our school is known for a lot of people tanning,” she said. “Kids start in March because they want to be tan in their dresses for prom.”

Bosse set up tables in the school cafeteria and began asking her fellow students to take the no-tanning pledge. And she must have been pretty persuasive, because 209 of Maynard’s 283 seniors signed on. (Maybe the others just haven’t seen the infamous tanning mom yet.)

Dr. Jennifer Stein, an assistant professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, applauds the effort, saying, “There’s a lot of pressure for teenagers to look tan. It’s really important to try to change the way teenagers think about tanning beds.”

Watch a news story about the Maynard pledge below.

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