The Wellness Fair brought 163 students to the Frey Suite on March 31 as an event designed for students to learn how to take care of themselves and incorporate wellness into all aspects of their daily lives.
It’s On Us brought together clubs on campus to teach students about wellness in a fun and easy way.
“Wellness Fair focused on different aspects of student wellness, so we had financial, career, academic, mental health, physical, social and sexual wellness,” Cassie Bates, the co-president of the It’s On Us club, said.
All kinds of clubs came together to bring the Wellness Fair to life.
“We asked RHA, Exercises Medicine, Rotaract, PRIDE club and CSF,” Bates said.
Each club picked the wellness area that they wanted to give information about and created a fun game or activity for the students to do as they learn. To encourage students to take part in all the activities, there was a raffle at the end of the event for wellness baskets. Students could receive raffle tickets after completing each activity.
Exercises Medicine had bicycles that students had to ride for 30 seconds or more to get a smoothie. They had over 80 students who participated in their activity. They wanted to show students that exercise can be done in many different ways.
“Any type of physical activity, technically, is exercise, so you don’t have to go on a five mile run and go lift heavy weights to exercise, you can just ride a bicycle,” Blaike Bryan, a member of Exercises Medicine, said.
The event was inspired by Bates’ time at Morningside, where they had a similar event.
“I personally advocate for mental health and wellness, so when I brought that to my exec team, they also loved the idea,” Bates said.
Some of the students were pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoyed the event.
“I’d say it was better than my expectations were going into it,” Kaydence Cihacek, a student at Wayne State College, said. “I thought it was going to be, I hate to say boring, but more informational tables and that type of stuff, but it was very different.”
“There were some really cool aspects, like I really liked the smoothie bike,” Madison Dvorak, a student at WSC, said. “I thought that was cool.”
Everyone collectively agreed that they thought the event was a success.
“I do think it was a success, and I honestly don’t think I could’ve pulled it off single-handedly by myself without having It’s On Us to back me and getting all these other organizations on campus involved,” Bates said.