Fauquier County, VA (March 23, 2023) – Fauquier County Public Schools (FCPS) has partnered with the Rev Your Bev campaign, an obesity prevention initiative of the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY), to encourage its school community to drink more water during the school day and recognize the academic and health benefits of making this choice. FCPS values the health and well-being of its students and staff, and for this reason, updated its wellness policy earlier this year in January with comprehensive language that increases water access and promotion to align with Rev Your Bev’s best practices. The updated wellness policy recognizes water as an essential nutrient and ensures that students not only have access to water during the school day but before and after school as well.
To celebrate its updated School Wellness Policy and the continued healthy learning environment it provides its students and staff, FCPS hosted a celebratory event last week on March 23, 2023. During the event, students, teachers, and staff participated in fun water-related activities and wrote Thank You messages, thanking FCPS for their efforts to promote healthy hydration and empower their school community to make drinking water a habit. The Rev Your Bev campaign also donated and distributed over 1,000 water bottles to support the division in implementing its policy.
Healthy hydration is important to students like Abigail Shilling at Fauquier High School who shared, “Empowering our school community to promote healthy hydration is important to me because hydration is crucial in everyone’s lives and so many people don’t take it seriously or have access to it. When people don’t drink enough water it can have major effects on their health. By having reusable water bottles and accessible water fountains we can promote healthy hydration for everyone.”
FCPS is excited about its updated wellness policy and the extraordinary steps they are taking to increase water consumption and ensure all students have an opportunity to be healthy and successful. School Nutrition Director SueAnn Fox noted, “As we all know, staying hydrated through water consumption is essential for maintaining good health and well-being. Unfortunately, many people do not consume enough water, and we believe that instilling good habits in our students now will be beneficial throughout their lives.”
With FCPS partnering with Rev Your Bev and joining the growing list of divisions with comprehensive wellness policies that place an emphasis on water access and promotion, more Virginia students now have more access to water throughout the school day.
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About the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY)
Established in 1999 by the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth empowers Virginia’s youth to make healthy choices by reducing and preventing youth tobacco and nicotine use, substance use, and childhood obesity.
VFHY takes a comprehensive approach to prevention work that includes reaching about 50,000 children each year through classroom-based prevention programs in public schools, after-school programs, community centers, daycares, and prevention programs across the state. VFHY’s award-winning marketing campaigns deliver prevention messaging to more than 500,000 children annually. In addition, VFHY’s research program provides scientific insight into methods to effectively reduce tobacco use. Since 2002, VFHY has funded 40 large research projects at universities throughout Virginia. For more information, visit www.vfhy.org.
