À Votre Santé

The end of this fifth week of school (I’m counting that bit before Labor Day) brings us to the official opening of our brand-spanking-new Guild Recreation & Wellness Center. While we have been physically occupying this freshly minted space for the past five weeks, we are formally cutting the ribbon and Grand Opening it on Friday and Saturday of this week. It’s time to celebrate this outstanding addition to our campus!

 

Considering that the main structural feature of the new building is the gymnasium, a basketball court made for two (games), much hoopla is in order during this communal roistering. While certainly the biggest diamond in this brilliant tiara that sits prominently atop the head of the school campus (coming from the Newton side of the world), the gym is not the only sparkling facet of this new gem: there’s the ripped (in terms of equipment) fitness center, the spaciously provisioned training room, the inviting junior gym, the comfortable team rooms, and the beautiful classrooms as well. There’s new tech everywhere—in the classrooms mainly, of course, with screens and switches and boards and all manner of other wonderful what all to beguile a teacher (but not so much the students, thankfully). One also has the possibility of dialing up the  Wifi in the main lobby to play, say, Olivia Dean’s "So Easy" (To Fall in Love), for example, off of the playlist of the building’s eponymous Head of School, who joyfully discovered this feature at the end of last week. Or, after smiting a volleyball or basketball nemesis, we could throw on some Queen perhaps— "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions"—for celebratory purposes (hopefully quite often in the future). There may be no “w” in gymnasium, but there is one in “Wellness.” Let’s go, Gators!

In addition to competitive team sports, the new Recreation & Wellness Center will help our students learn about, enjoy, and celebrate good health practices by participating in PE classes and yoga; practicing personal hygiene (we have showers again now!); building and maintaining fitness; and learning, in our classrooms, about good nutrition, building safe relationship and self-care practices (you know, STDs, IUDs, OUIs, CBDs, mTBIs, and other important acronyms presented in the health education curriculum); and even some basic emergency care through First Aid and CPR classes.

 

The combination of the new Guild Recreation & Wellness Center and Brimmer and May’s programs and people is a peerless pairing and absolutely an attainment to celebrate. Cheers to, and for, one and all who helped envision and create this beautiful and eminently functional new center for our school community. Here’s to all of our Health and Wellness. À votre santé!