Tobacco-Free Parks:
For a Healthy Community

Tobacco-Free Youth Recreation (TFYR) assists recreational organizations and communities in their efforts to create a tobacco-free environment where they can promote and model tobacco-free lifestyles.

This is accomplished by helping these groups partner with youth and adult community members to implement a recreation-based tobacco prevention strategy.

A primary focus of TFYR's work is to assist Minnesota communities in adopting tobacco-free policies for their parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, and other outdoor recreational facilities.

TFYR focuses on the Twin Cities metro area with grant funding from the Minnesota Department of Health.

Click here to learn more about TFYR.

To view a directory of Minnesota's tobacco-free parks, zoos, fairgrounds, and other recreation areas, visit the TFYR website.

Tobacco-Free Policies in Other Outdoor Spaces in Minnesota

Although TFYR has traditionally focused on recreational areas, the program does collect information on tobacco-free policies in a variety of outdoor spaces. To view our database of tobacco-free outdoor policies, you can download the Outdoor Air Policy Database (Microsoft Excel). This list contains information on tobacco-free policies in locations such as

• Parks
• School grounds
• Fair grounds
• Public grounds (such as city-owned property)
• Employer grounds
• Healthcare facilities

This list continues to grow, so if you know of other tobacco-free policies that you would like to see added to our list, please contact us.

Resources Available from TFYR

TFYR has materials for community groups, policy makers, recreational organizations and schools. Many of these materials are available for download.

Materials include:

• Sample tobacco-free policies

• Factsheets on the benefits of adopting a tobacco-free policy

• Step-by-step guides to adopting a policy

• Step-by-step guides to advocating for a policy in your community

• Permanent metal signs to Minnesota communities that adopt comprehensive tobacco-free policies for their outdoor recreational facilities

• Permanent metal signs to Minnesota schools that need assistance in promoting their tobacco-free policy on outdoor athletic facilities