This week, students, teachers, early childhood educators, staff, and administrators across Virginia are uniting to celebrate how their school communities think about water as part of Rev Your Bev Week. This statewide week of action is organized by Rev Your Bev, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s (VFHY) healthy hydration campaign. With the theme “Water looks like nothing but helps you do everything!” the goal of the week of action is to promote water and the vital role it plays in student health and wellness, and to mobilize schools across Virginia to boost students’ ability to maintain healthy hydration habits in schools and childcare institutions.
As part of Rev Your Bev Week, Rev Your Bev and Y Street, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s statewide youth-led high school program, are engaging schools and students from pre-K to 12th grade in fun water-related activities. This includes distributing 500 kits that contain an interactive children’s book created by Rev Your Bev to educate kids and caregivers about the many good things water does for a child’s body. Additionally, the activities involve students, teachers, administrators, aides, coaches, and other staff in demonstrating how water quenches thirst and supports students’ growth and success both in and out of school.
Schools and childcare institutions’ participation in Rev Your Bev Week will reinforce Rev Your Bev and Y Street’s broader objective of encouraging school divisions to update their School Wellness Policies to increase water access and promotion in Virginia schools. Since 2019, Y Street members have collected over 25,000 messages of support and surveys and have met with school board members to advocate for policy changes. As a result of their efforts, 28 school divisions across the Commonwealth have updated their wellness policies and partnered with the campaign, benefiting 309,694 students who are learning and growing in environments that prioritize water.
To learn more about the Rev Your Bev campaign and its partner school divisions, visit revyourbev.com.
