Brianna Sanchez is setting up tables.. and flyers and signs in Alumni Park. She organized and leads the Wellness Fair. That’s an event USG has hosted since last spring. Last year’s focus on wellness was only one day, but this year its longer.
Brianna Sanchez: “We decided to expand this to a week because part of the wellness committee in USG believes that there’s so many resources on campus, especially wellness resources, whether that be sexual wellness, mental wellness, emotional, spiritual, and so on. It’s just they’re not well utilized by students because they just don’t know about them and they’re not really well promoted.”
This time of year can be hard for those in and out of relationships... Sanchez recognizes this... so she scheduled the event right around Valentines Day... She hopes to promote better understanding of personal love languages. as well as self-love.
Sanchez: “A lot of the tables around here have focused like their interactive components around like something of loving yourself or around the ideas of Valentine’s Day. So, we thought this day, this week would be perfect just because it is getting into that atmosphere of Valentine’s, and even if you don’t have someone to spend it with, we’re encouraging you, you to spend it with yourself and really take care of yourself.”
At a table nearby... under the Sycamore trees... Celia Wood greets students interested in the group she works with.... Peaks and Professors... They bring together students and faculty to hike through the California wilderness... Wood says Peaks message is to increase the accessibility to the outdoors.. and to get people outside. She says getting in touch with nature is a mode of self-expression.
Celia Woods: “So that has a lot to do with wellness, especially in the middle of LA, it’s harder to get outside and get exercise in natural places. So we really try to make our trip super affordable and super easy for people to get outside.”
Her booth has stickers and flyers to promote their upcoming hikes.
Summer Xia, is a first-year graduate student studying nutrition. She is international and appreciates how the fair is oriented around making relationships.
Summer Xia: ”I think it’s really hard to find community because you only come to the campus maybe like twice or three times a week. So you know, I’m always checking out like, different fair to find a community maybe I’ll be interested in.”
Xia particularly enjoyed the self-love writing activities at the fair. Students had the opportunity to write a love letter to themselves on colorful pastel paper and put it onto the branches of a self-love tree.
Xia: ”Journal is very important. Because sometimes you just have all these emotions kind of buried inside of you, and you need to let them go. I always love to journal. And just to reflect on the day, see how you can improve your day next time.”
The fair is today only, then Wellness Week continues through Feb. 20. Students can look forward to an Astrology, Tarot, Crystals and Labyrinths event on Tuesday, a Trauma Informed Pleasure event on Thursday, and Hazing Prevention sunrise yoga this Friday.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Sarah Arencibia.