The Wellness Club promotes self-improvement and a sense of community after significant growth during the first semester.
After recognizing heightened pressure causing unhealthy habits at Carlmont, Co-Presidents Kevin Yang and Neel Sijp founded the Wellness Club.
“We saw a lot of people getting deep into social media and video games and a lot of bad habits, and they weren’t really happy. We’ve gone on this journey of building better habits,” Sijp said.
During meetings, the presidents present a slideshow about the meeting’s topic. The slideshows include questions and discussion prompts to encourage member participation and engagement. After discussion in small groups, members reconvene in a larger group to continue discussing topics.
“They’ve talked about relationship building, networking, and a lot of different topics that are really relevant to high school students because it’s a challenging time,” said Marcus Beltramo, the club advisor.
Using advice learned in meetings, club members have noted positive impacts on their lives, especially in regard to breaking unhealthy habits.
“I’ve applied the phone color filter. It makes your phone less appealing, and that’s helped a lot with managing screen time,” said Donovan Dooley, a junior in the Wellness Club.
The club also serves as a place where students can pick up skills that are especially relevant to their lives in high school.
“Some of the most important things are time management tools for organization that have to do with schoolwork,” said Tristan Lim, a sophomore in the Wellness Club.
Meeting other students with similar goals has also allowed both members and officers alike to share their experiences and grow as a club.
“One of the most impactful things I’ve picked up from the club is the community and building more relationships with other, like-minded students,” Dooley said.
Reflecting on their own experiences with self-improvement have helped Yang and Sijp develop useful and interesting meeting topics.
“We have a call with all the officers to discuss meetings and plan future topics. We spend two to three hours thinking, writing slideshows, and planning activities,” Yang said. “I have been doing self-improvement for a while now, and that’s where we’re getting some of our ideas.”
The Wellness Club has experienced rapid growth throughout the first semester, which was something the officers were not expecting. The frequently crowded meetings have prevented an environment similar to previous levels of intimate-feeling engagement.
“Going into this club, I didn’t think there were many people open to the idea because going on this journey is difficult. What I realized was there’s a lot of people who are open to challenging themselves,” Sijp said.
In response to the growing size of the club, the officers began implementing new expectations to maintain a positive learning environment.
“As with anything that grows, you need to reassess and do things in order to develop and adapt,” Beltramo said.
The club continues to work towards increased levels of participation and focus from its members. Yang and Sijp have high hopes for the second semester with the changes they made in the club’s organization.
“I think it’s going to go pretty well based on the turnout at the last meeting. All the people were trying to learn,” Yang said.
Despite challenges, both members and officers contribute to the personal development community within the club, and they try to support each other to the best of their ability.
“There’s a lot of members as well as leadership bringing a lot of positive energy surrounding how they can maximize their potential as humans, students, and community members,” Beltramo said. “I think it’s a very noble thing that they’re doing in trying to help others improve.”
