Healthy Paw Reflection

My experience with Healthy Paws began junior year after I joined a program called 20/20 Leadership. The program required every school to design a project that will help a need in our community. It just so happen that this year topic was health. We were really excited because most of our members were a part of the Health Community or planned to pursue a career in the health field. After we met a few time we decided to expand upon a program that already existed in our school called Healthy Paws. Healthy paw was a really small organization through KU. Not many students had ever heard of it because the students that organized could not directly reach out to the student. And while they had some idea about what high school students worried about,

A few years back they decided to involve random students in the Health Community. We wanted to do more however and opened the group up to any student that would listen. We design topics that range between good nutrient and daily exercise to sexual transmitted disease and mental illness. We would ask students what health topics they wanted to learn more about then go design-interesting programs were students could learn more about those topics. Having an in-school clinic also helped because we could see what areas our peers needed the most help in and get advise from professionals actually working in the field. We wanted to create an environment where students felt comfortable asking question they couldn’t ask other adults or there friends without feeling embarrassed. We asked them about their concerns and what they believe need to change for Wyandotte County and Wyandotte High School to get ‘in shape’. At first we didn’t get too many students coming down. That was okay because the few students that did come down really enjoyed the program. It wasn’t long before word about the program got around and more and more students began coming down. Teacher had even heard about we were doing and peeked their heads in to see what we had plan for that