Student Senate has been working on creating something for students to spread wellness, leadership, and kindness. That is how they created Wellness Week, where every day, a new activity engages students with each other and those in need.

Amy Perez-Calderon, student body vice president, has shared how much work they put in and how they came up with the idea of Wellness Week. The Student Senate Executive Board took a trip to Iowa State in October for a leadership conference. Perez-Calderon shares “after the conference, all the schools that had attended were encouraged to have an event at our school that would help spread wellness, leadership, and kindness.”

Emma Kossley, English teacher, shared how important she thought Wellness Week was for her and others. “Wellness as a teacher is vital to staying happy and healthy! I love how Student Senate celebrated wellness.”

Wellness Week started with Mindful Monday when the Student Senate handed out stress balls with kind messages on them. This encouraged engagement with students and helped them focus on their wellness.

Student Senate continued to engage with students with Take Home Tuesday where they handed out goody bags to students that contained apple sauce, granola bars, and a small water bottle. This also  helped to keep students fueled throughout the day and many students enjoyed the free snacks.

Perez-Calderon shared “My favorite day has to be Take Home Tuesday, I enjoyed handing out goody bags to the student body.”

However, Heart Healthy Wednesday did not go as planned due to winter weather that caused Waterloo schools to close for the day.

“I felt that during our first couple of days, we were able to get a lot of engagement with the student body, but after the snow day, that engagement went down,” Perez-Calderon shares.

Even though engagement decreased Student Senate pushed forward to get it back up.

Once school since Heart Healthy Wednesday couldn’t happen Student Senate moved the activity to Thursday. Where students were able to buy hearts for $1 and the money was donated to the Hearts Association.

They followed with Fitness Thursday where students would post themselves doing an exercise and they would be put in a raffle to win some prizes.

Student Senate not only got to engage with the study body but with locals as well.

“For the prizes on Fitness Thursday, we reached out to companies and asked for donations we were able to get some coffee flasks and baggies from Sheels as well as some gift cards from the Sports Plex as well as from Tropical Smoothie!” Perez-Calderon shares.

The Tournament took place in the West Highschool gym Friday night. Three teams competed in a friendly game of volleyball one of those teams was a team of teachers.

Kossley was on the teacher team. “We thought it would be a fun way to get involved and have some fun!,” Kossley says on why she joined a team.

Her team’s name had some funny story behind it. “We have an inside joke that became our team name! ‘Ay, Dios Mio!’ is what we say whenever something silly or ridiculous happens… which is often!,” she shared with joy.

The teachers also put their room numbers on the back of their jerseys to represent that they are teachers.

However, when in a tournament there is always a winner and that is the “Big Dig Energy” team. One of their players was Emma Beckman, a senior, who is very active in the school community.

Beckman shares why she’s so active, stating that “playing in tournaments like this is fun because it’s a good balance of friendship and competition.”

Beckman is always encouraging engagement from other students and herself.

The “Big Dig Energy” team is a group of friends who love to get involved in school activities and are great at showing teamwork. Beckman shares “We always celebrated every point, big or small. We came into the middle and high-fived one another.”

At the end of the tournament, their team received medals for winning the most games.

Student Senate views Wellness week as a success at West High School this year as it helped people engage with each other and even take care of themselves. The deeper meaning behind Wellness Week is a very strong thing and similar things like Wellness Week are happening around America.

Perez-Calderon gave  a little insight on whats to happen next. “I think it would be nice if we could do it again because the students who did know about wellness week and engaged with it said they enjoyed it.”