Self-Care Club: Snacks, Friends, and Scattergories

Carmen Thomas
onwardtrojans.com

School. Work. Clubs. Sports. Tests. For a lot of high school students, the work never seems to end. However, some students have found a way to escape from the daily grind and find relaxation together.
The Self Care Club was founded three years ago by Carlie Fisher, who is now a graduate, and Mr. Smith, CHS’s AP Psychology and freshman geography teacher.
“Carlie Fisher, said she was thinking about starting a club because kids were too stressed,” Smith said. “It really has all facets of students. We have athletes, band, and students who are involved in all different clubs. Pretty much anyone who wants to come and just relax. And we do typically have food, so I think some are just there for the snacks.”
First-year club member and junior Paige Engels joined the club for the people but stayed for the activities.
“[I joined because] I just love Mr. Smith. He’s just such a nice person,” Engels said. “Most of my friend group is in the club. We just have fun.”
Self-Care Club is a space where students meet every month for 30 or 45 minutes. Together, the members experiment with different modes of relaxing.
“We typically have some sort of relaxation thing,” Smith said. “We’ve done coloring, yoga, we’ve done Scattergories, and model clay. Just different things to get their minds off of school.”
Recently, the club expanded its reach even further, by participating in the SAVE (Students Against Violence Everywhere) Promise Club’s annual Mental Health Fair on April 23.
“Mara (Huneryager) asked us to have a table there,” he said. “We just wanted people to decompress and have fun, so we had a bunch of adult coloring pages, some different games…just to have a break.”
The best part of the club? According to Smith, it’s Scattergories: a fast-paced word game where players compete to come up with unique answers to category questions, all beginning with the same letter.
“We’ve done Scattergories the last two years…It’s just a lot of fun. Students really get into it,” he said. “I get to see them go from being super stressed, because quite a few of them I have in class, to being carefree and relaxed.”
The club also helps students do better on important tests. As Engels tells it, she wouldn’t have performed as well on the SAT if it weren’t for the club.
“We met in the morning before the SAT, and we had breakfast together and coffee too. That was really fun,” she said. “I definitely loved the morning thing. That set me up to do well on the SAT.”
Smith teaches AP Psychology, a college-level course that dives deep into the human mind, thinking, and behavior. Smith funnels some of that psychological influence into the club.
“I can read a room and understand that our brain can only take so much during the day,” he said. “So, I definitely want students to decompress and have a moment when they’re not stressed out all the time by work.”
Most club members work diligently at school for seven hours, attend the club meeting to relax a bit, and then either go to sports practice or go home to do more schoolwork. According to Engels, it’s a much-needed escape from the stress of everyday life.