Students play volleyball at the Wellness Center on Monday night. Photos by Jennifer Friese/The Dakota Student.

The Wellness Center provided activities on Monday night to celebrate a part of Welcome Weekend and give tips about financial wellness and group exercise class demos. There were also cooking class demos and a game of Human Mario Kart.

Student Ambassadors and volunteers hosted the event to promote all the forms of wellness that UND has to offer to its students and faculty.

“For the most part we do it to promote all of the services we have as a whole, not just at the Wellness Center,” Wellness Center employee Jake Jensen said. “We just want to promote wellness as best as we can in all aspects.”

They promoted physical wellness by having pick-up games such as dodge ball, volleyball, rock wall climbing and a crowd pleaser — Human Mario Kart.

“Mario Kart was awesome, and I would definitely want to do that again,” freshman Nicole Pecka said.

The activity included students that got into blue tubs and went around obstacles while trying to avoid getting hit by dodge balls.

They also had group exercises and class demos to show students all of the different classes that the Wellness Center has to offer, such as Kettle Bell Inferno and Zumba, as well as cooking classes.

“I thought the Wellness Center would only offer the physical thing and was surprised on how diverse the activities are,” freshmen Madison Hurst said.

The event also provided information about financial wellness, where a booth was set up to inform students on how to be financially smart.

There was also a game show booth set up by the Wellness hub to promote a healthy lifestyle.

“I would like students to learn a little more about the seven dimensions of wellness,” volunteer Kirsten Zachman- Schommer said. “The physical, obviously you’re at the Wellness Center, but we also have the peer educators here to talk about alcohol and tobacco, as well as financial wellness.”

Breaking from tradition, this year the event was held on Monday night instead of on Saturday, like it has been in previous years. This change allowed for more events to be packed into Welcome Weekend to assist new students in getting more familiarized with campus activities.

The event turned out to be a success in not only being beneficial for new students to learn more about being healthy in all aspects of their lives, but also being a great social place.

“It’s a great way for new students to get acclimated to the Wellness Center, and to figure out where things are,” family and student programming coordinator Kirsten Okerlund said. “And of course for meeting new students and having fun.”

Ashley Carlson is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].