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Therapy dog, Pal, made a return visit to CHS to bring joy to students during lunch.

Colton, CA—To promote mental health awareness and destigmatize attitudes surrounding mental health, the Colton High Wellness Club hosted its 3rd annual Wellness Fair on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 3rd and 4th.

Students were treated to several booths set up along DC Lane outside the Cafetorium. These booths offered games and activities for students to engage with, like the Loteria, a bubbles booth, and even a chance to spend time with Pal, Colton High’s favorite therapy dog. On May 3, local banda group Sexta Generacion performed during the festivities. The Colton High Jazz Band offered musical accompaniment during lunch on May 4.

Nate Ramirez, President of the Wellness Club ran one of the booths. “My booth is the ‘Self Care Loteria’, we have these little Loteria cards but for each of the different booths in the fair, so you go around to each booth and get stamps and come back and get a prize.”

Wellness Club member Brooke Carlson also ran one of the more popular booths during the event. “My booth is Brooke’s Bubble Booth. It helps with anxiety and deep breathing techniques. I liked the sound of B. B. B. (Brooke’s Bubble Booth) and I just wanted to have a fun booth at the fair.”

Two of the agencies that came out included the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance. 

Allie Mink, representative for the National Alliance on Mental Illness shared, “We are the local affiliate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is the largest grassroots mental heath organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with mental illness and their families. We work on mental health awareness, reducing stigma, and giving people advocacy. We also lobby for laws that help protect people with mental health issues. There’s a new law that’s coming down the line called the CARE Court, which is something we’re standing behind.”

Gustavo Hurtado is a representative of the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance and Unity Hope. They talked with students about LGBTQ issues and distributed helpful brochures offering support services. “We’re here giving information about these organizations,” Hurtado said. “RPYA is a LGBTQ organization here in the Inland Empire, created in 2001 and we’re here giving information for our 11-18 year old folks, as well as our Free Chest Binder Program and our in person source opening up Wednesday, May 4th, at the Riverside Public Library.”  

One local business came out to support the fair. What’s Poppin’? provided popcorn for students to enjoy while exploring booths. 

What’s Poppin’? owner, Delilah Ramos shared her purpose for supporting the event. “We do a lot of donations for the kids with the products that we offer: funnel cakes, kettle corn, etc. Our kids come here, our family is from Colton, so we always give back to the schools. We bought an extra hundred bags for them that we donated ourselves. The Wellness Fair is awesome, it came out really good and my son is actually a part of the Wellness Club.” 

Wellness Center coordinator Evelin Villa felt happy about the outcome of this year’s two-day event. “I think we had a great success this year. We had a few community agencies come out and provide resources for students, one of them being the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance—I think that one was the biggest hit this year. I think the kids were really excited to receive resources that they probably haven’t been able to receive here on campus before, so that’s super exciting. I also feel that a lot of students participated in all the booths this year.”

Nate Ramirez was psyched about the positive response the event received from students. “The Wellness Fair is going great, way better than I anticipated, and way more people than I thought were going to show up. We didn’t expect this big of a crowd, but I’m really glad it’s going so much better than I’d hoped.”