September 2022
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PDRMA Profiles
PDRMA Profiles

How do you stay motivated to achieve your health and wellness goals? We’d like your ideas and tips about eating right and exercising. Please email HealthinAction@pdrma.org with your story or suggest another PDRMA Health Program participant who has inspired you for us to feature in a profile. Help us to stay focused on health and wellness!

We often hear how important drinking water is to stay hydrated — especially in hot weather. That’s what the Northern Suburban Special Recreation Association’s (NSSRA) Wellness Committee was thinking about this spring, when the suggestion came up to have a water-drinking challenge over the summer.

“One of the Wellness Committee’s goals for the summer was to have our people stay healthy and hydrated by drinking more water from our water filling stations and to do it in a sustainable way,” explains Chris Varner, NSSRA’s Manager of Marketing & Communications. “So at the beginning of the summer, we got water bottles for everybody with the NSSRA logo on them, and we sent everyone an email explaining some of the health benefits of drinking water in the summer months.” Some of those benefits are that water:

  • Carries nutrients and oxygen to your cells.
  • Aids digestion.
  • Cushions joints.
  • Protects your organs and tissues.
  • Regulates your body temperature.
  • Maintains your electrolyte (sodium) balance.

“Then we challenged agency employees to drink 15 percent more water than they typically do,” Varner says. “And if they did, we would award all employees enrolled in PATH 100 points.”

Since this challenge was also about sustainability, the team kept track of — and posted signs on the filling stations — how many disposable plastic water bottles employees were saving by using their refillable NSSRA bottles. (The agency based its numbers on how many bottles of filtered water they usually use monthly, upped it by 15 percent more water in May and June, and calculated they would save 2,400 water bottles.)

“We reached the goal with about five or six days to spare,” adds Varner, “and then surpassed it! In the end, we increased our drinking water usage by 20 percent and saved 2,600 disposable water bottles.”

Even better, the Wellness Committee learned it made a difference in people’s lives. At their staff meeting after the challenge, people commented about how they were drinking more water and feeling better. Dylan Sams, a Recreation Specialist at NSSRA, was among them. “As an active guy, I’m very conscious about ensuring I stay hydrated, and this challenge helped me stay aware of how much water I was intaking — and motivated me to drink a little extra.”

Mel Robson, Superintendent at NSSRA, agrees with Sams. “The water challenge encouraged me to increase my water intake. Every time I walked by the water fountain, I checked to see how close we were to our goal, and it often triggered me to refill my water bottle. I was excited we met our quota six days early!”

Varner was happy with the results both for the agency, which more than met its consumption goals, and for the personal results, too. “I definitely noticed I was filling up my bottle more — like every hour,” he says. “It definitely helped to have a water bottle at work to fill up. And when I got used to drinking more and then slipped a little with my water intake, I could tell I wasn’t drinking enough because I would feel a little dehydrated.


“I feel better when I drink my daily goal — which went from about 60 ounces to 100 ounces per day. And having the new NSSRA water bottle made it pretty easy to do!”


He and the rest of the team are so happy with their challenge results that they think they’ll do it again next summer and try to add some individual goals as well.

If you’re inspired to start drinking more water like the folks at NSSRA, check out these benefits here, and click here to calculate how much water you should be drinking to stay hydrated.