News July 22, 2014

Drink Up Welcomes Seven New and Renewed Supporters

FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA JOINS PARTNERSHIP FOR A HEALTHIER AMERICA AND SEVEN ORGANIZATIONS TO HELP ENSURE EVERYONE EVERYWHERE CAN DRINK MORE WATER

Brita®, FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, Haws Corporation™, Nalgene® Outdoor Products, S’well Bottle, Santa Clara Valley Water District and The California Endowment will promote Drink Up through products, marketing campaigns and fundraising programs

Washington, D.C. (July 22, 2014) – First Lady Michelle Obama today joined the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), of which Mrs. Obama is honorary chair, to announce that seven new supporters have joined the Drink Up effort, which encourages people across the country to drink more water, more often.

Brita®,FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, Haws Corporation™, Nalgene® Outdoor Products, S’well Bottle, Santa Clara Valley Water District and The California Endowment will support Drink Up by helping to ensure that people across America have access to drinking water, whether through water filtration systems, re-usable water bottles, drinking fountains or other products and programs.

“When the Drink Up campaign was launched last year, it had one simple goal – to get kids and families excited about drinking water,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “And today, less than a year later, we know that water sales jumped nearly three percent among people who saw Drink Up ads. So I am thrilled about the additional commitments to continue this effort that are being announced today by Brita, FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, Haws, Nalgene, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, S’WELL Bottle Company and The California Endowment. And I am confident that in the coming months and years, we’re going to see people across this country drinking more and more water.”

“As Drink Up encourages more people to drink more water, we also want to help make choosing water an easier choice. The efforts announced today – along with our current supporters’ efforts – will help us show more people that you are what you drink, and when you drink water you Drink Up,” said PHA CEO Lawrence A. Soler. “We applaud the efforts of each of these supporters toward helping us take another step closer to providing access to water for more people wherever they are, whenever they want it, however they want it – be it tap, filtered or bottled.”

Water filtration company Brita® has renewed its support for the Drink Up effort by donating 225 hydration stations to schools, community centers and organizations across the country over the next three years. Brita will also include Drink Up branding on the packaging of millions of its filtering water pitchers as well as financial support to the Drink Up initiative.

FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, whose mission is to promote and support early childhood development for California’s children prenatal through age five and their families, will brand all new and existing drinking fountains that have been or will be installed through the Water to Go Program with the Drink Up logo, totaling 23 stations. Further, the organization will integrate the Drink Up logo into its upcoming county-wide water campaign, which will reach nearly two million people.

Haws, an international company manufacturing drinking fountains as well as the Brita® Hydration Station® commercial filtration product line, will offer customized Drink Up branded options to all Brita® Hydration Stations® and drinking fountains nationwide, providing exposure to millions. In collaboration with Nalgene, Haws will also introduce a new fundraising program that offers schools and universities across the country cost-efficient hydration options, for which a portion of the proceeds will benefit PHA and the Drink Up initiative.

Nalgene®, supplier of hydration-related products including BPA-free reusable water bottles and containers, will be adding the Drink Up logo to millions of its popular Nalgene Loop-Top bottles that are manufactured right here in the United States, as well as including Drink Up into its point-of-sale visibility at major retailers across the country. Further, the company will donate Drink Up Nalgene bottles for sale at Drink Up’s Amazon store. Lastly, Nalgene will sell the Drink Up bottle at nalgene.com and donate a portion of the proceeds from each bottle back to the Drink Up effort.

Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), a leading water resources management agency whose mission is to provide Silicon Valley safe, clean water for a healthy life, environment and economy, will provide grants to schools to purchase 50 water filling stations branded Drink Up. These stations will be installed over the next two years across the Santa Clara Valley district. Primarily in schools, the SCVWD will provide grants to purchase stations and ensure Drink Up is branded by applying a waterproof sticker to the unit.

S’well Bottle, which produces fashionable and reusable stainless steel water bottles, has also renewed its support for the Drink Up effort. The company will add the Drink Up logo on the required insert into each bottle sold, totaling about 175,000 bottles annually. S’well will also continue to sell an exclusive edition custom Drink Up branded bottle on its website (www.swellbottle.com) and the Drink Up Amazon store, as well as pitch for a presence in its extensive national retail footprint of more than 1,000 stores and boutiques around the world.

The California Endowment(TCE), a private California health foundation with a mission to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and through the Rural Community Assistance Corporation, will increase community access to water in South Kern County and the Eastern Coachella Valley. TCE will install 120 Drink Up-branded hydration stations across these communities in order to increase access to clean water for children and families.

As part of today’s announcement, Nalgene will also donate 1,500 Loop-Top bottles to the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington for its 20th annual Thingamajig Invention Convention on July 24, 2014. This annual convention provides children with summertime opportunities to challenge them intellectually and creatively while exploring the fields of science, engineering, and design. For additional information about the Drink Up initiative, please visit: You Are What You Drink.

Also, for additional information regarding the 3% lift in water sales, please visit: http://bit.ly/1kaDX7b

About Drink Up: Drink Up, a collaboration to encourage everyone to drink more water, was formed in September 2013 among the Partnership for a Healthier America – which works with the private sector and PHA Honorary Chair First Lady Michelle Obama to make the healthy choice the easy choice for busy parents and families – and stakeholders across the public and private sectors who are dedicated to encouraging people to drink more water more often. You are what you drink, and when you drink water you drink up! For more information about Drink Up please visit You Are What You Drink and follow Drink Up on Twitter at @URH2O.

About PHA: The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with – but independent from – First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by some of the nation’s most respected health and childhood obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures that commitments made are commitments kept by working with unbiased, third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress our partners are making. For more information about PHA, please visit www.aHealthierAmerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter @PHAnews.