After the success of last year’s Wellness Week, Palatine High School’s Wellness Committee is bringing it back for the week of Sep 26 to spread their message of maintaining positive social, mental and physical wellness. 

Andrea Guthrie has been the sponsor of the Wellness Committee since its inception last year, and alongside its members, are committed to bringing in a variety of expert speakers to talk to students.

“The returners for this year are going to be a group from Illuminate Health and Wellness,” Wellness Committee sponsor Andrea Guthrie said. “They’re going to talk about stress, anxiety, and tips for managing that.” 

In addition to speakers, Wellness Week will include activities for students to actively participate in and hopefully give them new ideas on how to improve their wellness.

“This year we’re going to be doing some Zentangle drawing,” Guthrie said. “And we’re also going to have our culinary session back, which has students making healthy food or snack options.” 

New to Wellness Week will be a station on sleep and a modification to the meditation station that was present last year. 

“New this year will be an option about sleep as well as a mindfulness chakra meditation session,” Guthrie said. 

Wellness Committee believes that offering these sessions to students is paramount to ensuring that their overall wellness remains sharp. 

“It’s important for students to know that they have a safe space at school,” Junior Sonia Jezierski said. “There’s other people that understand them and that want to help them.” 

Jezierski joined the Wellness Committee this year after being a part of Wellness Week last year. Jezierski is eager for what’s to come this year. 

“I’m really excited for Wellness Week again, I think it was an awesome idea,” Jezierski said. “I’m really looking forward to all the events that we’re doing.”

These sessions are what drew Jezierski in to become a part of Wellness Committee, and joining was as simple as asking Guthrie that she wanted to help. 

“I came up to her because I knew about Wellness Week and I thought it was a cool idea,” Jercizski said. “And I thought it was a really cool idea and I wanted to be a part of it.” 

The best way for a student to become involved in Wellness Week is to use the flyers that will be posted around the school. 

“[The flyers] will be posted in all the What’s News areas as well as many of the classrooms,” said Guthrie. “[Students] scan the QR code which will take them to a link where they can sign up for the sessions.”

Wellness Week can mean different things to many different students, but at the core of all these unique experiences is the positive knowledge that students will be leaving these sessions with. 

“Students need a little bit of extra guidance when it comes to taking care of their physical, mental, and social needs,” Guthrie said. “And so this is trying to bridge the gap that we kind of experienced.”