What began as a tiny secluded room with a desk and chair has now grown into a bustling center of care, comfort and community. 

As it marks its 10th anniversary, the St. Francis High School Wellness Center continues its mission to support students with the school’s resident wellness counselor, Kym Weinandy, and the Guardian Angel Peer Team.

Before 2015, the “Wellness Center” was a quiet room in the school’s Counseling and College center, equipped with a single desk, chair and filing cabinet. 

Weinandy explained the challenges that this small room posed. 

“We were getting so many girls and we just didn’t have any space to see them,” she said. “There were a ton of people all the time wanting to come in. You’d have to send people away since you just didn’t have the space. It was just really crazy.” 

Dean Cynthia Cost said it was important to take the space to the next level.

 “We felt it was critical to find a space where students facing various crises could come to not only receive care, but to have a place to process and decompress,” Cost said.

After long discussions with administration, Weinandy, Cost and former wellness counselor Chyrissee Lee, the new and refurbished Wellness Center officially arrived at the start of the 2015 school year. The Blue Room and Zen Zone, converted from an old storage room and cafeteria space, created a calming environment filled with various fidgets and soft pillows. 

“The location of this could not be better,” Weinandy said. “It’s accessible for students to use, instead of walking across campus when in distress.” 

The calming Wellness Center has become so integrated into the school’s culture that many people still assume it has always existed. 

“People believed in what we were trying to build and achieve, but at the same time there were a lot of competing needs across the community,” Cost said. “The dining hall didn’t exist, all the conference rooms were booked solid, so it did take some time to stake a claim to the space, just due to so many community needs.” 

According to Weinandy, St. Francis was one of the first local schools to create a dedicated wellness program and center. Other high schools in the Sacramento Area soon began to model their programs after it. 

“We’ve had counselors from Jesuit, Christian Brothers and even Cristo Rey reach out to us for advice and patterned themselves after us,” Weinandy said. “It makes me proud that St. Francis set the standard.” 

While the center served as a great space for counseling, Cost and the counseling staff wanted to create a culture where students could talk with other peers about their everyday challenges. They believed strongly in a student-helping-student team. 

Guardian Angels was first the name of a grief support group a student started after her mom passed away. When the idea of a peer team later came up, they chose to keep the name in honor of that group’s beginning.

Guardian Angel Peer Team members are recommended by a faculty member or Weinandy herself. Then they undergo a selective process with an application and interview. 

These peer team members are not therapists — they remain neutral, empathetic listeners, respectful and non-judgemental. They are also taught about the principle of confidentiality, the same with all wellness counselors, to keep all things confidential unless someone has intent to hurt themselves or others. 

Peer team members complete a mandatory training session in the summer and lunch meetings throughout the year. Their training covers exercises on body language, active listening and even role-playing scenarios to simulate real-life situations.

For Jasleen Gandhoke, a junior leader for the Guardian Angel Peer Team, the group has been life-changing. 

“I realized that there’s so much more to being a Guardian Angel,” Gandhoke said. “At first, I thought it was just supporting your peers and the people at St. Francis, but then I realized it’s so much more than that.”

Gandhoke said being a Guardian Angel is essentially taking responsibility for the process, not the solution, for what people are going through. 

“It’s showing compassion, empathy, and understanding the hard times that people go through,” she said.

Many students have expressed gratitude for the wellness center and the way it’s been helpful in numerous ways, from handling academic stress to finding a supportive community. 

“I’ve never been inside to their lunch bunches or meet with them personally,” said a junior who asked to remain anonymous. “But it’s comforting to know that (Weidandy) and the Guardian Angel Peer Team are there if I ever need them.” 

The peer team’s motto, printed on the back of the members’ baby blue shirts, echoes that same idea: “Just because you don’t see your angels doesn’t mean they aren’t there.” 

Makayla Miller, a senior leader who has served on the peer team for three years, said she’s loved her experience in the program.

“Being on the peer team for three years now has impacted me by giving me a sense of community in which I feel belonging,” Miller said. “It has given me so many connections to people I would’ve never considered.”

Students also look forward to the annual Duck Hunt, where Guardian Angels scatter small plastic ducks around campus. Students who find one fill out a short survey with suggestions regarding wellness events or just in general to enter a raffle. 

Over the last decade, the Wellness Center has adapted to shifting student needs, especially with the rise of social media and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37% of high school students reported poor mental health in 2021, and 44% felt persistently sad or hopeless. Recognizing these struggles, the Wellness team wanted new ways to connect with students as they returned to campus. So, they created and launched the “Ask An Angel” podcast, featuring guest speakers and touching on topics such as ghosting, anxiety and more. 

Miller has been involved with the podcast for three years.

“I love working and editing the podcast and passing it down to others on how to do the same,” Miller said. “I like being able to share personal experiences with my peers so they can feel a sense of belonging and comfort.”

The team creates leadership opportunities for students to take on active roles in other ways than sports or academic teams, including with the podcast, lunch buddies and other initiatives.

While the Guardian Angels primarily help others, they’ve also benefited. 

“You understand how to help people around you,” Gandhoke said. “That includes families at home, just volunteering, outside, in your community, and especially your peers at St. Francis.”

Although the Wellness Center never had a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2015, staff and students agree that its 10th anniversary is worthy of a celebration.

“We were just so desperate for space back then that we didn’t make it official,” Weinandy laughed. “I think that’s maybe why we should make a big deal out of it this year.”