Coca-Cola sponsored the annual Wellness Fair last Thursday. This year’s theme was “Get Fit!”. The junior health fitness majors filled Lund with information on health, games, free food and much more.
The Finance Club also made an appearance in the Wellness Fair, their goal being to promote the financial wellbeing of individual members of the College.

“I care about the environment but I also want to raise awareness on campus. I feel like people know about sustainability but they don’t really know what they can do. I want people to know they can do many things to help the environment.”—Gwen Saliares

If you are in an organization or a groups leadership program and want to educate yourselves on being financially well-off during your years whether individually or within your group organization, the Finance Club holds presentations just for that.
“What we focus on is giving group presentations to different groups on campus, sororities, fraternities and other organizations. Investing student loans, savings, credits, those are all things we include in our powerpoint presentation,” Senior Tyler Gustafson said.
Junior Nicole Smetana and Junior Britta Powell tabled at the fair, promoting United; an organization that unites all Christian organizations together.
“One of the ways we can be spiritually well is by being mindful of the blessings we have in our life and what God has provided to us,” Smetana said.
At the table, the ladies provided stones to give away; these stones were provided as a physical reminder to count one’s blessings. Along with the stones were Bible verses to help remind individuals of their blessings from God.
“United is helping all the Christian organizations get together instead of being disjointed because we are all of the same faith,” Powell said.
First-year Environmental Studies major Gwen Saliares helped represent Gustavus Greens at the fair. The Gustavus Greens work on various sustainable projects on campus.
Divest Gustavus is an environmental club associatied with Greens focused on getting Gustavus administrations to divest their funds on fossil fuel companies and reinvest them into sustainable companies.
The poster at the fair displayed their current project. They received a grant from Coca-Cola and used that money to build a hydroponic system. The system doesn’t use soil, only nutrient water in which the plants became highly concentrated in nutrients.
Gustavus Greens are planning to build two more hydroponic systems in hopes that they can grow enough herbs and vegetables to provide the caf.
“I care about the environment, but I also want to raise awareness on campus. I feel like people know about sustainability, but they don’t really know what they can do. I want people to know they can do many things to help the environment, they don’t have to leave it for Gustavus Greens to come up with a plan,” Saliares said.
The physics department is working on a special bike in which students could possibly start using in the near future. When an individual pedals the bike normally, it charges the batteries of the built-in motor.
The plan is that students will be able to start using these bikes to go into town or wherever. If a student doesn’t want to bike up on the steep hill before entering Gustavus, the motor can be turned on and power the bike from the charged battery.
Using these bikes, students are able to make trips into town without carbon emissions from cars.
There were many other interesting groups that appeared at the Well-being fair. They held yoga lessons, they gave out brownies, students were able to test their strengths, and much more.

-Jessica Yang