Upbeat music played, beanbags thumped on the cornhole boards, and a wheel at the financial literacy table spinned as students spent time outside under the blazing hot sun. On May 20 during all lunches, students had the opportunity to enjoy a variety of activities offered during the last Wellness Wednesday — including fly fishing, planting, gimp, paper mache, and playing with kinetic sand.

Starting in April 2025, Wellness Wednesday has continued throughout the 2025-2026 school year. A team of teachers now meet every month to plan the events.

Wellness Wednesdays aim to offer students unique opportunities outside of the classroom, with a focus on mental health, relaxation, and fun.

“One of our main goals was always for students to find some type of new outlet or some type of hobby that they enjoyed that they would have maybe never learned about if they hadn’t participated in Wellness Wednesday,” Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Secondary Coach Ms. Morgan Segal said

When planning the Wellness Wednesdays, the team of teachers works to involve a variety of activities that would appeal to different interests within the student body. 

“We’re always looking for some type of art activity, some type of physical activity, some type of informational table…so that we can get as many students participating as possible,” Segal said.

While the Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) team usually reaches out to the organizations and guest speakers that they would like to come, sometimes presenters reach out to the school.

“They’ve reached out to people on our team and said, ‘Hey, I heard you guys do this thing called Wellness Wednesday. This is my group, this is what we do. You guys have room or time for us?’” assistant principal and leader of the PBIS team Mr. Thomas McLaughlin said.

For the informational side of this Wellness Wednesday, Andrew Cox from Citizens Bank visited Haven. A parent at Haven who knows Cox mentioned that Wellness Wednesday could be a chance for him to share his knowledge with students.

“The things that I’m teaching are essentially financial wellness,” Cox said. “Anyone that comes to my table, they spin my wheel. I ask them a question about either their own spending habits, or even college goals right there, just to get them thinking about some of the different ways they could be helping themselves.”

Simply having a person there to talk to about financial questions regarding college, their future career, and daily expenses, proved valuable for some students.

“I like that it was like varying,” junior Kathryn Kudrick said. “It was questions with college and without college. If you didn’t know what you wanted to do that was fine, but you could also talk about your goals, and he was there to help you figure out what you wanted to do.”

The Wellness Wednesday also offered students the opportunity to learn about fly fishing. 

The station was led by middle school gifted coordinator Mr. Marc DeJong and middle school music teacher Mr. James McLaughlin.

“It’s always a very awesome day to come out and cast fly rods with students and share some of our love for this…with them on such a beautiful day,” James McLaughlin said.

In addition to the other stations, many students were found at the gimp table. Freshman Emma Noon participated by using gimp, which is a type of plastic string, to weave bracelets. 

“It’s a really fun thing to do during lunch time to help us get our brains going to relieve stress from school work,” Noon said.

Senior Sami Daly, who helped out at the gimp table, also thought the Wellness Wednesday was a relaxing experience.

“I like how calming [Wellness Wednesday] is. It makes school feel like more than just learning, more like a community,” Daly said.

Wellness Wednesday offers students the opportunity to connect through trying new activities. To widen the experience, the Wellness Wednesday team is always open to suggestions to improve and add to the events.

“If anybody has suggestions, or like, ‘Hey, I really like this,’ or ‘I really want you to try to look into this,’” Thomas McLaughlin said. “We’re open to anything that people want to throw at us to say, ‘Hey, we can look into that.’”

Gallery • 10 Photos

Cayla Gaffney '29

Desmond Fuccillo (9) and Eli Danovitch (9) visit the financial literacy table at Wellness Wednesday on May 20.

Video produced in Media for Publications class.