Makenna Mayo has recently started a club here at West called the Inner Peace Society through a national program called WORK2BWELL - A student-generated program in conjunction with the Providence Hospital system that will be the club's foundation! IPS will be dedicated to raising awareness and advocating for mental and general student health and wellness. The following is an interview with Makenna where she gives us some more insight into the bright future of the club.

“What inspired you to start this club?”

“Well, it sort of all fell into place.  I have been wanting to start a club like this but I was a little stuck on how to start it. I saw an issue in our school that wasn’t recognized. I kind of feel that sometimes our school can be a little judgemental or close-minded, so I wanted to start something like this. And then my mom went to this workshop in D.C., and she discovered the program WORK2BWELL and it all fell into place from there. I thought that this would be the foundation and I could just build off of it and go from here.”

“What are your future plans with the club?”

“I’m hoping to get a lot of people involved and make a big impact within the school. I’m really excited even though it’s a little bit hard to get started but I hope that once I get started I’ll be able to get a lot of involvement. I’m also going to have a booth at the freshman orientation so hopefully, I’ll be able to get some freshmen to join! I would just say involvement within the school is my biggest goal.”

“What are you looking forward to the most with the club?”

“I’m looking forward to seeing the impact it makes. I’m looking forward to seeing how what we do can help people and the school in general. I hope to create a lasting impact so that even when I graduate the club continues and that someone is able to keep it up and continue the impact for years and years to come.”

“How do you think the club will contribute to the students here at West?”

“I just want to create a kinder and more open-minded environment. I really hope that by doing some of the activities we will be doing, it will create a safer environment for people and a school that's better for everyone in general, everyone’s happier and more included.”

“How can people get involved with the club?”

“Our first meeting will be on March 20th at 7:15 in the media center! So if you just show up we will be doing a simple activity and if you’re interested you can join and if you don’t like it you don’t have to. Just show up, that’s all that matters!”

“Do you have anything else that you would like people to know about the club?”

“I wanted to talk about the things we will be doing because when I was creating the club I was trying to come up with ideas for activities but WORK2BWELL really helped me create ideas for what we could do. Since we can do it through a club and it’s a nationally recognized organization, we can do lots of different activities that have small or really big impacts. For example, we could do workshops, we could have guest speakers come and speak for the school through the program, presentations, and I was thinking about doing a kindness wall. Where people would write something positive on a sticky note and tape it to a wall. I just have so many ideas and am so excited to hopefully see this flourish as we move forward.”

As you can see, Makenna is thrilled to start this club and has lots of great ideas that she is eager to put into place to improve everyone's mental wellness and the well-being of the school as a whole!