Students package their finished soap bars, one to take home and one to donate to Women Helping Women in the Bassis Student Center on Feb. 26. Westminster College’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) club hosted the homemade self-care event to kick off stigma-free week. (Photo by Courtney Cheney)
Students design bars of soap to kick off stigma-free week at Westminster College on Tuesday. Attendees created soap for themselves as well as making bars to donated to Women Helping Women, a project lead by Junior League of Salt Lake City.
The homemade self-care event was hosted by Westminster’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) club. Soap was cut from a 25-lbs block, melted down and poured into molds for decorating with scents, colors and other ingredients.
NAMI President Annie Brown said volunteering is one form of self-care which is why they will be packaging up and donating many of the bars created at the event.
“[Women Helping Women] is an organization that is aimed at helping women become single mothers and they have a resource center so that is where we will be donating [the soap],” said Brown, a psychology major.
Char Craer, an attendant at the homemade self-care event, said self-care can also include taking care of your skin, staying hydrated and eating enough food.
“As a psych major, we all learn Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the first thing you have to take care of is your basic needs […] in order to get to the point where you can worry about your psych, your mental health,” said Craer, a psychology major. “You have to start small to be impactful to the big things.”
Katie Sadd, a philosophy major, said it is important to take time for self-care in a society prioritizes being busy or stressed, seeing that as a sign of status.
“Self-care is really important because it helps us to take a step back and to focus on ourselves and remember that to take a day off isn’t a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength in admitting when you need time to yourself,” Sadd said. “It’s that moment to help yourself kind of recollect your thoughts and take a minute to slow down, which is really important in mental health overall.”
Emily Fine, a first-year student, said it was important to have this event to bring friends together in a calm and relaxed environment to support mental health.
“Being ridden with anxiety is hard and this is kind of just a good calming exercise for someone to do — just making soap with friends,” Fine said.
Programing for stigma-free week continues with a screening of Resilience VIII: Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope, in Gore Auditorium Wednesday from 6 pm – 7:30 pm. Representatives from NAMI said popcorn and soda will be provided.
