In honor of Women’s History Month, Student Health Services hosted the Bloom & Bliss event on March 18, where they embraced women’s wellness and celebrated women’s empowerment.
Long Beach City College students lined up under a canopy in the A-Quad on the Liberal Arts Campus to practice self-care by building bouquets, creating poetry and decorating envelopes.
Despite the heat, students enthusiastically gathered a variety of flowers into their bouquets while sharing ideas on what colors would look better together.
Towards the end of the bouquet building table sat L.A.-based poet Alex Petunia to help those who were interested in turning their words into poetry. She created free poems for people on the spot.
Daisy Cook, a licensed child social worker and a Student Health Services staff member was in charge of signing students in and providing a run-down of what they could expect.
She got the students excited for the creative activities before them, and let them know about the availability of free snacks.
“Today is all about women taking care of ourselves,” Cook said.
At some point, Ginger Wilkerson, director of Psychological Services at LBCC, took over for Cook to help students sign in.
“It’s important that students see LBCC staff members caring about their mental health and willing to do anything to help them,” Wilkerson said.
LBCC student Heaven Garcia stopped by the event and was pleasantly surprised by what was taking place.
“Making a card for yourself or others is such a cool idea. I think it’s really cute to see women supporting other women and getting flowers for each other,” Garcia said.
She spent a majority of the event writing letters and decorating envelopes to put them in, which put her in a great position to observe her peers in action.
Cook emphasized the importance of taking the time to slow down and care for ourselves.
“We pour so much into others, so, today we’re taking time to pour into ourselves,” Cook said.
As the event came to a close, many students lingered to grab more flowers and snacks before getting back out into the direct sun.
