Why YOU Should Join Y Street

Hi, I’m Kit, a recently graduated senior at Fauquier High School! I joined Y Street last year when they entered my school through FBLA, and I became a member of the Leadership Team last summer. Becoming a Y-Ster has substantiated to be one of the best experiential decisions I have made!
Y Street is a youth-run initiative advocating for healthy living in Virginia. Students have the opportunity to join the organization once their school is accepted into the Y Street Partner Program and the members go through a training session on the campaigns. Being a member of Y Street allows students to develop advocacy, communication, and teamwork skills through educating the public and campaigning to update policies and models. Currently, Y-Sters are promoting 100% tobacco free schools through the Twenty-four/Seven project, introducing alternative breakfast models under Great Starts with Breakfast, using Rev Your Bev to inform peers about the additive sugars in their drinks, and eliminating food deserts around Virginia by surveying communities with Fresh Spot.
Y Street has expanded my involvement in volunteering, strengthened my workplace readiness skills, and influenced my passion for community engagement. I am passionate about Y Street because it’s healthy living mission demonstrates grounded goals and effective results that better communities. Y Street’s efforts have benefited me as a leader through encouraging positive skill-building experiences and have benefited my community through informing the public about healthy practices and promoting structural changes in application. By joining, individuals are presented countless opportunities to create an influential change in their community; Y Street cultivates prosperous initiatives within each individual’s participation.

Is the opportunity to get involved with Y Street at your school? Click here [link: http://my.ystreet.org/apply] to apply for training.

More Blogs

A Terrific Tabling Event

Hi everyone! My name is Amber, and I am in the 10th grade at Manor High School in Portsmouth. This is my first year as a member of Y Street, and it has been an absolutely incredible experience. One of the most amazing things I have participated in was our Rev Your Bev event that […]

Turning the Table with Rev Your Bev

Hello! My name is Aliyah and I am currently a junior at Granby High School in Norfolk. This is my second year in Y Street and my first year on the Y Street Leadership Team (YSLT). I have participated in multiple opportunities for our campaigns, Rev Your Bev and Share The Air, that have provided […]

My Rev Your Bev Experience

Hey! My name is Kevin. I’m a sophomore at Page County High School. This is my first year in Y Street, and so far I’m enjoying it. Recently, some other members and I helped host a Rev Your Bev event at our school and it was a lot of fun. The event took place during […]

Teamwork

Hello! Our names are Vivian and Ayla, and we are 9th graders at King George High School. This is our first year in Y Street. Recently, we had the amazing opportunity to meet virtually with Delegate Margaret Ransone to discuss Y Street’s campaigns and goals. We first heard about the opportunity to meet with Delegate […]

My Y Street Training Experience

Hey! My name is Daniela and I am a sophomore at J.R. Tucker High School. I have been a part of Y Street for two years now. This year, as a returning member, participating in the training was straightforward and educational. The training consisted of four online modules. These modules included information about our campaigns, […]

Brunswick High School Hydrating Youth

Hi, fellow Y Street members! My name is Jaila. I attend Brunswick High School and I am in the 12th grade. I am honored to write about Brunswick’s SECOND Rev Your Bev event this year featuring Russell Middle School! Taking this event to the middle school was a great opportunity to educate younger students about […]

My name is Zariawn and I’m a junior at Granby High School. As of my two years in Y Street, this is my first year apart of the Y Street Leadership Team. I’m a young person with the interests of informing my community about important situations and playing an active role in policy change. Policy sets the record straight when dealing with the rules and regulations of a place or events’ expected ways of operation. If policy is passed, it could have a tremendous effect on not only people, but their environments. A structural change in society results in a new way of life.
Y Street works to change incomplete or outdated policies to ensure all important information is to be explicitly clear to rid any possible loopholes and promote healthy living in a formal manner. I’ve spoken twice to the School Board of the Norfolk Public Schools Division to ask for and showcase a revised school tobacco policy. A revised policy and a healthier school would affect children’s lives for the greater good.
Youth should care about policy because it truly shapes a future we’d like to live in. Y Street has taught me that another great way of benefitting your community is to write a positive change in stone that stands through policy. By becoming more involved in policy, others could learn more about the policy process and why policy is a vital factor in the functioning of success. People should support the policy changes Y Street is trying to make because the ultimate goal is a healthier life for all Virginians.

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A Terrific Tabling Event

Turning the Table with Rev Your Bev

My Rev Your Bev Experience

Teamwork

My Y Street Training Experience

Brunswick High School Hydrating Youth

My name is Zarielle A and I am a junior at Granby High School. I have been involved in Y Street for 2 years now and this has been my first year on the Y Street Leadership Team.
I feel that tobacco-free school divisions are important because when comparing class averages in test scores between smokers and non-smokers, those who smoke tend to score very low. From this, it is concluded that smoking and tobacco use causes negative effects on our youths academic processing and school participation. As a student, those around me that are tobacco users in my opinion, are pushing themselves down a negative path especially being so young. Tobacco use comes with many health problems, so since we are so young, we can almost “set” a pathway for our health to follow, for those who are tobacco users, to me, are already damaging their health’s future. From personal experience, my parents both used to be heavy tobacco users, so I’ve witnessed the many health problems they went through from tobacco use. It wasn’t until they both stopped smoking that their health became better and they no longer suffer the many health effects they used to have.
A tobacco-free school impacts a community by not allowing for harmful substances to be used in an area where progress and growth should be made. Also, tobacco-free schools tend to have information available to those who need it; for example, signs, in which the information help to aid the youth and community as to why tobacco use is so harmful. Students are influenced by tobacco-free policies by learning of the many consequences that come with tobacco use on school grounds, being given places they can go to for help if they are already tobacco users, and the benefits of being “informed” or “persuaded” to quit. With school board meetings, principal meetings, signs, information cards, and school held events, Y Streets efforts help schools by thoroughly providing aid, information, and guidance to tobacco users and to the schools in hopes of the students and the school division in becoming 100% tobacco-free.

For more information on the 24/7 Campaign, visit 247campaignva.com.

More Blogs

A Terrific Tabling Event

Turning the Table with Rev Your Bev

My Rev Your Bev Experience

Teamwork

My Y Street Training Experience

Brunswick High School Hydrating Youth

My name is Morgan I am a recent graduate of Colgan High School. This past year was my third year in Y Street and my second year on the Y Street Leadership Team. Y Street is a youth-led movement that strives to promote health in Virginia by targeting issues such as unhealthy beverage consumption, tobacco usage, and obesity. So why did I choose to primarily focus on obesity?
Although Virginia is one of the country’s largest agriculture producers, many Virginians are becoming increasingly nutritionally deficient, which can cause an increased risk of type two diabetes and obesity. Youth are at a larger risk for developing a health issue because children are being introduced to unhealthy diet habits at much younger ages than in previous years. Also, youth, including teenagers, are more susceptible to meticulously-targeted food ads which allow for a certain “norms” to be established that popularize unhealthy diet practices, blinding youth from other forms of nutrition. I want to introduce youth, like myself, to healthier alternatives because I believe that everyone has the right to know how to live and practice a healthy lifestyle.
Y Street combats health issues by breaking down the issues into smaller campaigns that help youth by providing supplemental resources and data to initiate policy change within Virginia. Also, Y Street encourages youth to make healthy decisions by offering supplemental resources that educate and advise readers about easy ways to attain a healthy lifestyle. I would be thrilled to see more youth adopt practices to begin a healthier lifestyle because these youths would have more energy and they would go on to live happier lifestyles. If our communities adopted healthier lifestyles, a larger group of people would become happier, increasing community support and creating life-long benefits. Y Street advocates for healthier lifestyles by attending community events and educating individuals about the health benefits of a diet change while engaging in fun activities!

More Blogs

A Terrific Tabling Event

Turning the Table with Rev Your Bev

My Rev Your Bev Experience

Teamwork

My Y Street Training Experience

Brunswick High School Hydrating Youth

My name is Koby and I’m a senior at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, VA. Broad Run is home of the Spartans and is a part of the Loudoun County Public School division. As for my accomplishments and goals in Y Street, I have been on the Y Street Leadership Team (YSLT) for a year. I have had the opportunity to run multiple events and am eager to make Loudoun County a comprehensive tobacco-free school division. Today I want to talk about leadership!

Being a leader has nothing to do with “me” and has everything to do with “you.” There’s something that we all desire, or talents and abilities that we possess. It is the leader’s job to expose people’s talents and abilities and encourage them to move in a different, more meaningful direction. Sure people can have many different hobbies or passions, but a leader is someone who encourages someone else to follow a new direction – whatever that may be.

When it comes to our Y Street campaigns, it is important that the Y Street Leadership Team does their job to implement this change by being effective leaders. Being a leader is all about standing for what you believe in and creating a movement of people that will stand with you. Y Street has multiple campaigns that promote a healthier Virginia, but without anyone to encourage people to follow, it is difficult to create change. At the end of the day, our movement is all about bringing value to every student, staff, and visitor at the public schools here in Virginia.