Chesterfield County, VA – On May 9, 2023, the Chesterfield County school board voted to update its School Wellness Policy to ensure that all students within the division can practice healthy hydration behaviors while on campus. This updated policy was developed in collaboration with the Rev Your Bev campaign, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s (VFHY) healthy hydration campaign, and its statewide youth-led high school program Y Street.

Research has consistently proven that water is the healthiest beverage choice as it acts as fuel for your body. Since 2013, Rev Your Bev and Y Street have devoted and sustained efforts to spread healthy hydration messages to help individuals make drinking water a habit and improve Virginians’ overall health. Chesterfield County Public Schools (CCPS) updated wellness policy now aligns more with Rev Your Bev’s best practices, ensuring water is accessible in high-traffic areas, and that schools throughout the division are promoting healthy hydration behaviors.

Y Street members like Haley Flores, a high school junior at James River High School, are committed to supporting Virginia school divisions’ efforts to maintain a positive, healthy learning environment. Haley presented and spoke at school board meetings to encourage the division to consider adding Rev Your Bev’s language to their wellness policy to make it comprehensive. During public comment, Haley shared, “Hydration is vital to the success of students and can improve academic performance. As a student, I find it easier to concentrate and perform when I am adequately hydrated. For many students, schools are their only reliable source of meals and or possibly even drinkable water. That is why our goal is to increase the access, availability, and promotion of water in Virginia’s schools through comprehensive policy adoption.”

The impact of the updated policy is expected to increase students and staff’s water consumption and promote positive healthy hydration. CCPS joins the growing list of Rev Your Bev’s partners, becoming its 6th partner. CCPS will receive free resources such as water bottles as part of its partnership with Rev Your Bev to support the division in implementing its updated policy.

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Alberta, VA – The Town of Alberta parks and outdoor recreational areas are officially tobacco-free and e-cigarette-free. On May 8, 2023, the Alberta Town Council voted to add a voluntary policy to prohibit tobacco use in outside parks and trails.

The vote was initiated by Y Street, Virginia’s largest youth-led movement and a program of the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth. Y Street members strive to ensure Virginians have equitable access to clean and healthier outdoor environments through its campaign, Share The Air. Share The Air aims to create 100% tobacco-free parklands by encouraging local park and recreation departments and government officials to adopt comprehensive tobacco-free and e-cigarette-free outdoor policies.

Joy Bell, a Y Street member and high school sophomore at Brunswick High School, presented to the town council to share why this issue is important and how the town can provide an even greater outdoor experience for its residents by going 100% tobacco-free and vapor-free stating, “I support Share The Air because I believe that my family and I should not have to be around second-hand smoke and the effects that it will have on us and others. We like to enjoy the outdoors and want to be able to enjoy being outside without having to worry about what could happen to our health while we are outdoors.” The Town of Alberta strives to create dedicated spaces that provide residents with a space to be active, relax, and gather outdoors and for this reason, the council passed a motion to adopt a tobacco-free outdoor policy and partner with Share The Air.

The impact of the new policy is expected to reduce tobacco and vape litter and residents’ exposure to secondhand smoke, and promote positive role modeling for youth who visit the county’s parks and outdoor recreational areas. The Town of Alberta joins the growing list of Share The Air’s partners, becoming its 14th partner, and localities with tobacco-free and e-cigarette-free outdoor policies. The Town of Alberta will receive free tobacco-free signage as part of its partnership with Share The Air to post as a reminder to park visitors.

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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, day cares 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 on 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.

Richmond, VA (May 2023) – This week, teachers, early childhood educators, staff, and administrators across Virginia are pledging to role model healthy hydration behaviors as part of Rev Your Bev Week – a statewide week of action put forth by Rev Your Bev, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s (VFHY) healthy hydration campaign. Its purpose is to promote water and the vital role it plays in student health and wellness and mobilize schools across Virginia to boost students’ ability to maintain healthy hydration habits in school and childcare institutions.

For the week of action, members of Y Street, VFHY’s statewide youth-led high school program, are leading their schools in fun activities to show their school communities how to make healthy hydration part of their school culture by leading by example. Teachers, administrators, aides, coaches, and other staff at school can be powerful role models in shaping the nutritional behaviors of students. Because of this, Y Street members are asking school staff to commit to role modeling behaviors such as pledging to carry a water bottle and refrain from drinking sugar-sweetened beverages in front of students as part of Rev Your Bev’s best practices. Y Street is showcasing staff pledges on social media to amplify their commitments and the healthy message it sends.

In addition, Y Street is collecting personal messages from their school community supporting healthy hydration promotion in Virginia schools. Abigail Shilling, a Y Street member and student at Fauquier High School, 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.”

Schools’ participation in Rev Your Bev Week will help bolster Rev Your Bev and Y Street’s overarching goal of encouraging school divisions to update their School Wellness Policy to increase water access and promotion in schools. Throughout the school year, youth have collected over 4,000 messages of support and met with their school board members to advocate for policy changes. Youths’ efforts have led to four divisions updating their wellness policies to align more with Rev Your Bev’s best practices: Hopewell City, Fauquier County, Caroline County, and King George County Schools, with more divisions joining the list soon.

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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.

About Rev Your Bev

Established in 2013, Rev Your Bev is a statewide obesity prevention campaign that aims to improve the health of all Virginians by encouraging individuals to drink more water. Learn more at RevYourBev.com

Richmond, VA (May 2023)  – King George County Schools (KGCS) 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. KGCS values the health and well-being of its students and staff. For this reason, the division updated its wellness policy earlier this year with comprehensive language that increases water access and promotion to align with Rev Your Bev’s best practices. The updated wellness policy includes language that ensures good-tasting water is accessible to students and staff during and after the school day and encourages students, staff, and administrators to model positive hydration behaviors.

To celebrate its updated School Wellness Policy and the continued healthy learning environment it provides its students and staff, KGCS hosted a celebratory event on May 10, 2023. During the event, students, teachers, and staff participated in fun water-related activities and wrote Thank You messages, thanking KGHS for their efforts to empower their school community to make drinking water a habit. Students like Vivian Wright at King George High School are appreciative and shared, “I am so grateful that the school board was so open to our suggestions. It means a lot that they would listen to student input and start making changes.” Ayla Zook, a student also at King George High School expressed her enthusiasm sharing, “This policy change means so much to all of us in the school division. Not only will it create positive changes for water access right now, but it will help set trends of healthy hydration that will follow students and staff throughout their lives. For this, we are extremely grateful.” 

The Rev Your Bev campaign donated and distributed over 2,000 water bottles to support the division in implementing its policy, and provided water promotion posters and dispensers. 

KGCS  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. The Nutrition Director, Anita Davis, noted, “Water is essential to the hydration of our bodies, so drink up!” With KGCS partnering with Rev Your Bev and joining the growing list of divisions with comprehensive wellness policies that emphasize 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.

About Rev Your Bev 

Established in 2013, Rev Your Bev is a statewide obesity prevention campaign that aims to improve the health of all Virginians by encouraging individuals to drink more water. Learn more at RevYourBev.com