Wellness Week is back to help educate and provide fun for students. A full week of vital information as well as entertainment was provided last week, April 24 through 28. Students participated in lessons and activities focused on health and general wellness.

The week concluded with the annual triathlon, held on Friday, April 28, where students biked, swam and ran during their gym periods. Runners do one lap around campus, (1.08 miles) bikers do seven laps around the track (1.75 miles) and swimmers go down and back in the DGS pool (100 meters). Student participants can compete as a team or individually. Those who don’t want to participate will have to do a fitness related activity.

Wellness Week is meant to show students how to live a longer, happier and healthier life. Teachers discuss and practice healthy habits to achieve a better physical mental state for themselves.

PE teacher David Burton discussed one of his favorite parts of Wellness Week.

“I really like the wellness day. I like that the community comes out and we get all these vendors and the kids get to go see stations that they like. We have everything from the police to the fire department to Walgreens and it.” Burton said.

On April 26, over 40 vendors were present at DGS for Wellness Day, with each one providing safety tips along with fun activities students were able to participate in.

Margaret Pearson, who was with the Illinois Secretary of State office for Organ and Tissue, enjoyed the event.

“I think my favorite part of the health fair at DGS is interacting with the students, asking them questions about organ and tissue donation, seeing how much they know and just answering their questions about organ and tissue donation. They’re all very engaging and interested in the subject,” Pearson said.

Rena Burks was also at the Wellness Fair. She is a beauty consultant at Walgreens along with the person in charge of the red nose donation.

“The excitement of the children coming into the field house and coming over to our table with Walgreens [is great]. They’re always just so excited and interested to see what Walgreens is gonna do,” Burks said.

Alapi Shah is a Saint Louis University graduate and won the Outstanding Activism award at Saint Louis University. She received this for her work as a treasurer for SAM (Sexual Assault Hotline).

“I really appreciate being able to educate the children, especially about consent, because a lot of times people know what consent means, but we wanna make sure that we’re starting young to ensure that this problem is prevented from an early age,” Shah said.

Students and staff also have positive things to say about wellness week.

“[One thing I enjoyed was] seeing all the different people and getting to learn about things like mental health and physical health,” senior Aric Hager said.