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
