Community Programs & Education

The Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY) is committed to involving Virginia's communities in the effort to prevent tobacco use by youth. Local community programs provide direct interaction with young people throughout their childhoods, and are a key element in changing youth attitudes about tobacco use. This change in attitude will ultimately help prevent the initiation of tobacco use by young people.

This year, VFHY is providing $3.6 million in funding to 75 grant recipients throughout the Commonwealth, directly serving 58,000 children. There are many different types of grant recipients, including nonprofit organizations, faith groups, schools, and other community groups that reach children of all ages.

When applying for funding, these organizations wrote their grant applications based around a program of their choice selected from the Foundation's Compendium of Tobacco-Use Prevention Programs for Youth. This Compendium contains programs that address issues relative to tobacco use prevention, including primary tobacco use prevention education, tobacco cessation, early tobacco intervention and reduction, advocacy, youth empowerment and social skills building. Many of these science-based programs are recognized as model, promising, or effective tobacco prevention programs. At the same time, the range of programs found in the Compendium allows grantees to choose a program that best fits their communities.

A local community connection is extremely important to the Foundation. As a result, the VFHY Board of Trustees approved members for four Regional Advisory Boards, each comprised of 16 to 20 local community volunteers that oversee the program grant review process and make funding recommendations to the VFHY Board of Trustees.