To promote a positive atmosphere among Diamond Bar High School students, the Wellness Center staff offered various games and activities, such as solving an escape room and painting rocks, during Kindness Week, the last week of January.

This year’s theme was “Mission: Possible,” expressing kindness as an achievable goal. Senior wellness intern and consultant Sameha El Amoudi worked in the escape room. She came up with this idea because she enjoys escape rooms herself and wanted to give other students the opportunity to try one.

“It was a wellness project I had to present to Ms. [Sandy] Davis, and everybody really liked the idea,” El Amoudi said via Messenger. “It’s definitely one of the more engaging activities, I would say, and it was a lot of fun.”

The planning process took her two weeks. For the activity, each clue included a fact about wellness or kindness for the participants to learn while they figured out the puzzle.

In the escape room, participants ran into a man, Agent P. Ositive, who promised to give them a valuable object if they could break into his archnemesis’ lair and figure out what he needs. To solve the puzzle, students had six minutes to find slips of paper that pieced together a message: “Kindness is key.”

“My favorite part was putting the clues together and thinking of creative ways to make them work and flow together and see the people trying to solve them,” El Amoudi said. “You learn about the different types of problem solving ways [by] watching people and how they interact.”

Junior Anna Chen ran a booth where students could write or draw on painted rocks. After students were finished designing their rocks, the wellness interns covered them in Mod Podge and decorated the school with them if students didn’t want to keep their rocks.

“[Students] gave them to friends or kept the rocks themselves to brighten up their houses or their rooms, but the most important part was that they had fun making them in the moment,” Chen said via Messenger.

Junior Sara Jew attended Kindness Week to see the different kinds of arts and crafts the wellness staff had to offer. Through making a friendship bracelet, she said Kindness Week has made her realize that there are many ways to show the people around you that you appreciate them.

“It helps you as a person think of what your friends might like and treat them [to] a bracelet,” Jew said.

During Kindness Week, sophomore Sydney Tagarao had the opportunity to make bracelets, create badges and watch dance and Commercial Music perform.

“My favorite part was being able to see all the therapy dogs because it brought so many people to the upper quad,” Tagarao said via Instagram. “It was just a lot of energy and happiness that came out of everyone. The smallest things can change someone’s day completely, so it’s important to be aware of all the small things and what you present to others.”

Another activity students could do was writing notes with positive messages on them, which would later be hung on a trellis.

The Australian Red Cross and Guide Dogs of America fundraisers had booths set up for the entire week to raise awareness about the fires in Australia and to point out how costly guide dogs are for the Americans that need them.

In addition, the Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement, an organization dedicated to ensuring Asian and Pacific Islander communities have access to a healthy environment, had a vaping display. Meanwhile, the Pet Prescriptions team also brought in service dogs. Students had the opportunity to take a New York Times quiz to determine if their meal choices helped improve the environment at a climate change display.