Puppies, Pizza, and People
Darien High School helps out overwhelmed students recuperate and relax after a couple of rough weeks after midterms
March 10, 2020
The Wellness Fair is a beloved day here at DHS, one which is devoted to helping students recuperate from the stress of midterms. It’s accomplished by extending lunch waves to forty-five minutes to allow students to go to the wellness fair. The fair took place in the gyms creating a variety of activities that were designed to help students detox from the drug that we define as a school.
A pool of seven students, some of the names are to be anonymous, found that only three participated, while four did not. While this is a relatively small pool, less than fifty percent of the student body involved in the wellness fair, much less than its organizers would have hoped. So what was the matter with it?
Was the lack of promotion one of the reasons why students were not attending? Out of the four students who I spoke to who did not go, there was a mixed bag of answers. For an overall consensus: students were not too sure if it was happening, where it was happening, or what time it was happening. Without the extended lunch, little to no light was shone onto the fair. The majority advertisement was an announcement during the third period when many students were confused about what was going on.
Using that time for other activities was one area that all four of the students who did not attend could agree. They all replied that they did a combination of eating a more extended lunch and getting work done. Many students also said that by skipping the fair to do these things, it was actually “beneficial to [their] stress relief”.
However, there was also a large population of students that participated.
Sadly, only one out of the three students in the study stayed for longer than five minutes. The other two students walked in, looked around for a second, and walked right back out the door. Natalie Volz felt that the fair was a “little unorganized and there wasn’t a lot there” meaning her stay wasn’t as long. One source, Tate Hanson, explained that he “didn’t even know what events were at the wellness fair, [he] just gravitated to the puppies”. Hanson said that he would “absolutely go” back to the fair if it meant he got to see the dogs again.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I did not go to the Wellness Fair. I thought that the extra time in my day was better spent studying for a test that I had. By going to the Wellness Fair, I would have been more stressed out about my test because I would have had half an hour less of precious study time.
I do believe that DHS Staff and Administration was trying to help students and reduce their stress, but didn’t correctly work out. But it seems like the one thing everybody can agree on, the puppies are welcome back to DHS at any time.
