This past Thursday, Ohio Wesleyan’s cheer team traveled to River Valley Middle School to represent OWU in River Valley Local School’s annual health and wellness event.
At this event, students and their families could tour the school, stopping at booths to learn about making the right food choices, staying active, and mental health resources. Activities included learning to play pickleball, martial arts, and cardio drumming.
Our cheerleaders participated in events that encouraged young kids to stay active by playing pickleball, teaching line dances, showcasing stunts, and getting the young crowd involved in their activities.
Brent Herdman, food service director, states that having wellness events such as the River Valley Middle School Health and Wellness Event available “is more effective than [the school] knows. The community seeing that this event, in addition to others, is available to them is beyond impactful.” Herdman also reiterated his gratitude for the OWU cheer team attending the event, stating that he plans on “putting [their] picture in the community newspaper to showcase the great work [they] did at the event”.
When asked about how visible an impact events like this one have on students, especially with a food-oriented role in the district, Herdman answered that “it may not impact them now, but when they are in careers down the road, they can look back and encourage their communities to do something similar… it is not necessarily what they get out of it today, but in the long run.”
When talking with Kelly Pettigrew-Garrett, the OWU cheer team’s coach, as well as the 6th-12th grade family liaison and career navigator for River Valley Local Schools, she expressed how thoroughly impressed she was by the cheer team’s efforts to keep students engaged along with the energy they radiated at the event.
Kelly stated that “any time the cheerleaders can be out in front of students, it creates several connections [with them].” Because of this event, younger students will see cheerleaders and remember the stunts they were put up in at the event and potentially be encouraged to join sports, like cheerleading when they are in college. Additionally, Kelly conveyed how impressed the staff at the event was with the involvement of the cheerleaders and the way they conducted themselves at the event.
When asked about the cheer team’s influence at the event, Kelly was ecstatic to talk about how ‘when the cheerleaders put kids, and even adults, in [stunts], it demonstrated how physically fit the cheerleaders were. With this being a health and wellness event, [they] were a good example of what health and wellness looks like.”
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