January 24, 2023
Each new year brings new opportunities to grow, to nurture, and to learn. The Campus of Caring has started off this January with two events to jumpstart those new year’s goals for mental and physical health. Many resolutions don’t make it past January because we can’t help biting off more than we can chew. But with a little patience with ourselves and with support for those resolutions, we’re that much closer to healthy self-improvement goals. Needless to say our campus showed up with energy and enthusiasm!
These GS Connects events have been made possible by our sponsors, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, and Der Dutchman Amish Kitchen Cooking with the delicious and healthy lunches.
We started on January 12th with Chart a Course for Positivity, where Kristen Lessig-Schenerlein of Koi Coaching and Consulting talked about our mental fitness and the powers we hold to uplift or hold ourselves back. Mental fitness is not just about being able to focus on your work and avoid stress, it’s about being honest with yourself for a more sustainable sense of wellness. In other words, roadblocks and the stress they cause are inevitable, but the way we handle them is up to us. We have the power to be kinder to ourselves and not give up on our hopeful resolutions.
Kristen walked us through practices to calm our minds and approach our problems from a more relaxed point of view. Everyone was split into pairs to talk about ourselves and our state of mind to get comfortable with confronting our stressors. From here we can identify the "self-saboteurs" that we’re dealing with; these are feelings and habits that may seem practical but ultimately keep us in a negative mindset. These could be the impulses to avoid our problems or run ourselves ragged trying to fix them all at once. Once we learn to let these self-saboteurs go, we can listen and act upon our own "sage advice" and gain a more positive outlook. Our campus got active and vocal in the exercises and made the most of the presentation.
Next Michelle Mitchell, Rhonda Kapusta, and Eric Hoskins from CoreSRQ for a Healthier Community in 2023; together they showed us what we can do for our physical wellness in our first outdoor GS Connects event! Eric started with a series of guided movements to help with breathing, mobility, and joint health. We all enjoyed stretching our legs out in the beautiful weather before heading inside for lunch and presentations. The CoreSRQ team talked with us about wellness as a well-rounded way to look at health that extends beyond just diet and exercise.
The community space that CoreSRQ offers doesn’t just offer a place to exercise, but a means to connect, much like our own campus. People can cultivate relationships with those around them through group exercise as well as gaming groups, and when you form relationships like this, you’re more likely go continue with the activities that brought you together.
The year is off to a strong start with these two events, and we'll be looking to create more like this to provide our campus with tools to stay happy and healthy!
Real estate is one of the greatest costs in a business budget. Our partnership with The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center allows more money to go towards our mission. And what better place to house our office than on a campus with nineteen other outreach agencies.
Collaboration is key to the success of our work. The Campus of Caring is a unique space where we can easily join forces with other agencies to make the best use of our resources and maximize our community impact. The affordable rent allows us to allocate more funds to our mission of transforming the lives of students and their families.
As a small organization with a staff of two, employee safety was a big consideration when we were looking for office space. We did not want our employees to be in a place where they were alone. Being on the GSHSC campus has been great because there is a whole community of like-minded professionals.
