By CAITLIN HOFEN, Student Reporter
The J.R. Holder Wellness Center staff recently created the Wellness Challenge to encourage students to get moving and become more comfortable in the wellness center. Assistant Director Olivia Yandel sat down with the Northwestern News to discuss the progress of the Wellness Challenge and the response it has received.
Running from Jan. 11 to Feb. 28, the Wellness Challenge requires participants to sign in and exercise for at least 30 minutes. Each check-in enters the participant into a drawing for prize giveaways.
“I think that the challenge has brought a lot of students that wouldn’t normally come to the Wellness Center to actually use our facilities,” Yandel said. “That was essentially our goal. We really wanted the students to use the facilities more since they pay an activity fee to help with their membership here. It’s been great to see a new wave of students come in.”
To support fitness goals set by many students in the New Year, wellness center staff wanted the challenge to motivate students to keep exercising after the standard two weeks.
“One of the No. 1 New Year’s resolutions is going to the gym more or losing weight,” Yandel said. “So many kids come into the wellness center for the first two weeks, then it just kind of dies off. We were hoping this would help build healthy habits by giving incentive to come in.
“Hopefully, people are building healthy habits and aren’t coming in just for the giveaways. We hope people are realizing that it’s a nice place to come in and relieve stress by hopping on a bike or even walking on the track. We wanted to get people in here and realize that exercise isn’t scary, and it’s very beneficial.”
The prizes for the giveaway drawings are gift cards to Walmart, the bookstore, Subway and Northwest Nutrition. Anyone who checks in at least once is eligible for these prizes. The top prize is a pair of Apple Airpods.
Participants must check in a minimum of 21 times to be eligible for this giveaway.
“We see a lot of kids in here two times a day, which is the maximum they can check in. I think it’s been really great,” Yandel said. “The Tuesday that classes were canceled, we only opened for three hours, and we had 78 people come in. That’s a huge number, especially for a three-hour time span, and most of those were students. We had a lot of students who had never been in the wellness center before.
“I think it’s been a really positive thing for people who don’t normally use the facilities to come in and realize that the wellness center isn’t a scary place. It’s a friendly, judgment-free zone, and we try to make it like that as much as possible. It’s a great place to just relax for a minute.”