Do you know what you would do if your house caught on fire?
Alli Simpson, Laura Marano, Pentatonix, Troye Sivan, Joey Graceffa, Frankie Grande, GloZell Green, Kelsea Ballerini, Bart Baker and Brittany Furlan are partnering with The American Red Cross, What’s Trending, iHeartMedia, The Charity Network and Reveal Project to spread the word about the home fire awareness campaign 2Steps2Minutes .
CelebSecrets4U spoke with Simpson about the campaign to find out why she made the decision to get involved.
“With Red Cross, I’m really excited to be a part of it because, you know, I sort of got involved in the beginning because I know that I, luckily enough, have a powerful voice in the teen world right now and the main reason why I do what I do is to be able to give back and make people aware of important matters in the world and this is definitely one of them so I was really excited when I got the call to be a part of it.”
The campaign is simple really. It just requires two steps that are critical to safely escaping a home fire and they are: 1) practice your home fire drill in under two minutes, and 2) check your smoke alarms each month.
“It’s all about keeping people safe, or trying to keep people safe, with house fires because no one really knows how dangerous it really is and how many people lose their lives from house fires, so it’s all about trying to keep your house safer in two steps,” said Simpson. “It’s a quick and easy way for people to become more aware of the problem and become more safe.”
It might seem like common sense, but on average, 7 people die every day from a home fire. Having a working fire alarm alone can reduce your chances of death or injury by 50%.
That is why Simpson and her fellow celebrities have found ways to raise money for the campaign, offering exciting celebrity experiences and celebrity-designed merchandise.
Simpson chose to design a hoodie and T-shirt for the campaign that can be purchased here.
“It was a fun process. In the beginning, I sort of had to choose whether I wanted to do a T-shirt, or a hoodie, or a tank top or anything like that and I decided to go with a hoodie because I feel like everyone loves a good hoodie and I had to choose the color so I went with black because I know that everybody, you know, it’s an easy color for everyone to wear and I put one of my favorite quotes on it, which is ‘let your dreams be bigger than your fears’ and I think it relates to the campaign as well as something that really relates to me and can connect me to my audience. That’s how I sort of came up with it. It was a quick process but I love fashion, I love designing and it all came together perfectly.”
Of course, we had to find out if Simpson practices what she preaches and she assured us that she has in fact done the 2 steps in 2 minutes.
“I definitely have. Me and my family went through it and watched the videos together. Yeah, we definitely got on it for sure.”
On top of raising money for 2Steps2Minutes, Simpson is also busy making the teen world a better place as Radio Disney’s ‘Youth Engagement Officer.’
“I think it’s a really cool role and I’m very excited to be named that. Like I said, being in this industry and having followers and having quite a powerful voice in this young industry, I think that Radio Disney has done really good job of putting together this role for me. There needs to be that someone that people can reach out to and look to for advice and stuff like that so I’m pretty excited to be the youth engagement officer.”
She wants to be a good role model for girls and someone that they can look up to, so she’s always thinking about what she says, especially now that she has this new title.
“It’s important with us teens and social media, everything’s seen and once it’s up, it’s up. Once you say something, you said it, you know, and there’s no going back so I think it’s definitely something that I have to be aware of especially now and so does everyone else, but definitely being the youth engagement officer, I wouldn’t say there’s too much pressure with it but I definitely have to think about the decisions I make.”
Simpson will have plenty of time to be a good role model for young women now that “The Alli Simpson Show” has been renewed for a second year and the show has been extended to three hours. It gives her more time to talk with her guests and add more segments that allows her to interact with her listeners more.
“Originally, I’d been talking about my crush of the week and a fashion segment and then I do Ask Allie. I sort of added a couple cool things like a motivational segment and I’ve extended my Ask Allie so I can talk to people more.”
Speaking of fashion and “Ask Allie,” we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask for a little fashion advice from the 17-year-old radio host.
“With me, a big thing for fashion advice, is dressing authentic to you because I know a lot of people try and follow trends that are really popular in the fashion world right now but don’t necessarily suite them or necessarily fit their body shape or look good on them, but you know, people just want to follow the trends, but I’m a big believer in not following trends and creating new trends and finding the things that work for you.”
Of course, Simpson’s listeners and followers aren’t the only ones that need advice.
“I would say my mom if I went to anyone for advice. My mom and I are really close so if I’m ever in need of anything I’ll go to mom. And my dad. He’s really good with that kind of stuff too. And my brother. I might as well have just said my family (laughs).”
