by Jen Oemig
CHELMSFORD – After a brief hiatus, the Chelmsford High School Wellness Fair is returning on Wednesday, March 6.
Hosted by the district’s Wellness Advisory Committee, the Wellness Fair is a fun-filled, interactive, engaging event that focuses on self-care, fitness and promoting healthy habits and routines for students.
Wellness Advisory Committee co-chairs Katie Simes, the health, physical education and consumer sciences coordinator at Chelmsford Public Schools, and Steph Quinn, the social sciences department coordinator for the district, have been busy planning this year’s event.
Numerous vendors will be on site throughout the day, including the Chelmsford Board of Health, the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, CVS, Complete Game Physical Therapy, Care Solace, The NAN Project, SLS Fitness and Center for Hope and Healing.
“Since we haven’t had [a Wellness Fair] since 2019, I feel like we have a much different group of vendors than we did in the past,” Ms. Simes said. “We have 47-48 vendors at this point, which is a decent number.”
Held in the high school gymnasium, students in grades 9-12 will take time during the day to come down and check out all of the Wellness Fair offerings.
In the past, this Wellness Fair was just for wellness classes,” Ms. Simes. “When we brought it down to the gym, we were able to invite other disciplines, as well.”
Students who attend the event will be able to get information on everything from financial wellness to emergency preparedness.
“We’re looking at all aspects of wellness, and really trying to create a whole component to change what a student understands as wellness,” Ms. Quinn said. “It’s so much more than just what you’re eating and what you’re doing.”
One thing Ms. Simes said students can look forward to is a variety of interactive and engaging stations, whether they’re getting their blood pressure checked, learning how to perform CPR, doing some Jazzercize or trying something new.
“We have three different companies doing samples,” she said. “Hannaford is doing food samples, Dragonfly Café will be doing butterfly tea samples and Nancy Antolini from food services will have food samples.”
Chelmsford Senior Center representatives will have a conversation bench at their station, inviting discussions on why it’s important to make connections with people of different generations.
“There are some unique things happening,” Ms. Simes said. “I feel like there’s a good mix of different things going on.”
At the end of the day, Ms. Simes said she is interested in seeing how the students interact with vendors and, ultimately, getting their feedback.
“None of them have heard of the Wellness Fair or have any experience with it,” she said. “I think we put together as engaging as a Wellness Fair as we can, but you don’t really know until [the students] walk in the door.”
