Wellspring of Health Project
PROJECT NEED: The need that we are addressing is the need of students to prioritize their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. According to a survey conducted by one of our team members, where students at SOAR participated in this survey, on a scale of one to five, 32.3% of students indicated their stress level was at a 3, or moderate. 50.2% of students believe that school is affecting their social life and mental health. 40.3% of students spend the majority of their weekend completing homework. In addition, based on another survey by the U.S. National Library of Medicine: National Institutes of Health, 71% of (college) students believe "their stress and anxiety levels had increased due to COVID-19". Thus it is quite clear that there is a need to help students in regards to their health and well-being. Since students at our school are both in high school and college, the second statistic does apply, and we will also address the stress that comes with managing both levels of education at once.
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Link To Our Project Planner:
Link To Budget
Process, Including Events:
Team Planning
At the beginning of the school year, we recruited members during club rush and also welcomed students who were interested throughout the year. Many of these students contacted one of our members or the team though social media to express their interest. We meet at least once a week, on Wednesdays during lunch through zoom. The link to meetings are sent out every Wednesday morning. We discuss ideas for our project, reviewed emails from GirlsBuild, our secretary takes minutes, and we make motions to host events during this time. Pictures are also taken at our meetings. Outside of our meetings, we fill out paperwork and sign minutes to have our events approved by the Associated Student Body (ASB) at our school. Near December, our advisor and president also met with our school principal to discuss our project and approve Love The Leadership, Winning On Excellence, "Breakfast, Lunch, and Winner: A Workshop On Nutrition", and "SOAR You Think You Can Dance: A Workshop On Staying Active". After events were approved, team members volunteered to design a flyer, and this flyer was posted on social media and sent to all students at our school. During events, we take pictures and then post these pictures to social media. Every person on our team is assigned tasks such as designing a flyer, contacting another organization, or working on a section of the website.
Meeting With Sophomores
On November 3, 2020, we hosted a meeting where Sophomores were given the opportunity to talk to their teachers and express their concerns, thoughts, and emotions regarding school. This allowed both students and teachers to better understand each other and move forward with the goal of helping students so that they did not feel so stressed. This helped students and teachers with their mental, emotional, and physical health.
Poster credit: Class of 2023 |
Daily Positive AffirmationsStarting January 11th, our team began sending daily positive affirmations to students at SOAR High School and students at other schools, along with posting them on social media for people from all places to view. These affirmations are sent out and posted every day and the purpose of this is to encourage and inspire others to have hope. When someone is feeling disappointed, frustrated, or upset, these affirmations will bring them motivation to persevere and hope for the future. This helps to improve the mental and emotional health of students, faculty, staff, and other individuals. Students at SOAR High School can sign-up to receive these affirmations, which are then placed into a slideshow by our team and a link to the slideshow is sent out via text by the school every day. All other students and individuals see the affirmations as a friend sends affirmations to them, or through social media.
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Love the LeadershipThe project "Love the leadership" is to acknowledge and show our appreciation to them, with the goal of improving the mental and emotional health of teachers and staff. Recognitions are given to a teacher, a staff member, or an administrator for exemplary service to students. The recipients are determined by team members based on recommendations from the students. We had our first recognition for Love The Leadership on May 5, 2021, and we recognized two teachers. On May 8, 2021, we also sent slideshows with messages to all teachers who received one when we asked for recommendations.
Note: We did not include the messages from students in the slideshow for privacy reasons. |
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Winning on Excellence Winning on Excellence is a raffle that is used to heighten spirit and boost engagement and motivation. Many students have said that they lack motivation during online learning and one of the goals of Winning On Excellence is to motivate students to be engaged and active during class, as they will be rewarded for this. This helps students with their emotional and mental health. We call out names every week for two students to receive a gift card and a certificate. Teachers are given five tickets each week to give out to their students so that students can join the raffle to have a chance to win a gift card of their choice and a certificate. If a student is recognized for displaying excellence by participating in class or staying on task, and are given a ticket, their ticket can be drawn anytime from the Friday of the week the recieve the ticket to the end of the school year. However, hen a student's ticket is pulled, the ticket cannot be pulled during future drawings, but they can receive another ticket if a teacher choses to nominate them another week. These tickets are distributed digitally. We drop off the gift cards at the schools office so that the students can receive their reward there.
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SOAR You Think You Can Dance: A Workshop On Staying ActiveWe hosted a workshop titled "SOAR You Think You Can Dance" on April 9, 2021. We invited professional ballet dancer Anton Harrison LaMon to teach us how to move to music no matter what we are doing. Dance to with our feet ..dance in our seats. Moving to the music in our head while in our online classrooms that will keep our blood flowing while in difficult times like this. The goal of this workshop was to teach students, staff, and members of our community how they can stay active even while attending multiple zoom meetings and spending time on the computer. This will help everyone primarily with their physical health, but can also be beneficial mentally and emotionally, as exercise can be helpful for the mind and heart as well.
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Breakfast, Lunch, And Winner: A Workshop On NutritionBreakfast, Lunch, and Winner: A Workshop On Nutrition was an event designed to inform students about a balanced meal. The workshop was co-hosted by guest speaker Alexis Brooks who is a registered dietician, with Kaiser Permanente. She guided students through the importance of having a healthy breakfast and lunch to stay energized throughout the day. The workshop was interactive and enjoyed by participants. The goal of this event was to share information with students and members of a community so that they could improve their health by eating in a balanced manner.
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Anti-Racist Book Club Discussion: So You Want To Talk About RaceOn March 24, 2021 we co-hosted an Anti-Racist Book Club Discussion with the Student Social Movement Club at our school. We discussed the book So You Want To Talk About Race, and covered what racism is, how discrimination can look different for people depending on their ethnicity and whether we felt we experienced more discrimination for being female for being people of color. We also discussed the importance of having conversations relating to race in order to address racism. Students the opportunity to share their thoughts which hopefully improved their mental and emotional health. It can be very helpful to share your ideas and feelings about a subject and we provided an opportunity for students to do this. Thank you GirlsBuild for the funds to purchase the book and for the idea!
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Earth Day Cleanup
Girls Build co-hosted a community cleanup in the city of Palmdale, on April 22nd. Here our team was accompanied by other organizations within the area with the goals of creating a better environment in our community and encouraging students to spend time outdoors. These other organizations include Heal The Desert, New Colors Project, Student Social Movement, and Humble Hands Helping. One of our goals for this event was to get students to spend time outdoors while taking a break from technology and helping the environment. This is helpful for one's physical, mental, and emotional health, since time is spent under the sun, eyes rest from technology, and our mental and emotional health benefit from time spent in nature and with other volunteers. Some students were also able to see each other and their mentors in person for the very first time. Through the power of Antelope Valley citizens, we were able to collect and properly dispose of trash at Barrel Springs Trails, making it a nicer and happier park. Following this project, we have decided to take part in future cleanups, all whilst influencing others to do so too.
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Una Lake Community CleanupOn March 8, 2021, we co-hosted a community cleanup at Una Lake with other organizations in our community such as Heal The Desert, Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue, and NewColorsProject. We cleaned this area and picked up items such as clothes, bricks, floor tiles, and other items that had been left near the lake and in nature. The purpose of this event was to help cleanup our desert and to encourage students to spend time outdoors, away from a screen. This is helpful for one's mental, emotional, and physical health.
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Civic Engagement:
We the team of Girls SOAR High expanded our projects beyond the walls of our school and connected to our larger community through stepping forward to participate in local community activism and service by co-hosting a community clean up in Palmdale for Earth Day, promoting and recognizing leadership through Love The Leadership and Winning On Excellence. These two programs (LTL and WOE) allowed us to recognize our SOAR teachers, staff, and students for their hard work during difficult times like this in virtual learning. We also worked on voter registration, voter awareness, and voter turnout during GirlsBuild's Voter Mobilization Challenge. We invested in our community and develop partnerships with Heal The Desert, Lifesaver's Wild Horse Rescue, SmokeFreeAV (Antelope Valley), and Printing Boss Co., among other organizations to strengthen our voices and impact. We have worked with these organizations through volunteering together, supporting each other, and investing in skill building for students to help them achieve their potential as advocates for a better future.
Voter Mobilization Challenge
Our team took part in the GirlsBuild Voter Mobilization Challenge. During this challenge, we presented to 11th grade U.S. History Honors classes and 12th grade AVID classes. We talked about the importance of voting and registering to vote. During these presentations, students were given time to pre-register/register to vote. More than 20 students have pre-registered to vote. We also recorded videos describing the pro and con side of some of the propositions on the ballot in California. These videos were shared on social media to help voters stay informed. In addition, on social media, our team posted reminders about the presidential debates.
One Proposition Video: Prop. 24 |