Achievements: We are proud to say that, according to our surveys, most people strongly agreed with the statement that our stress ball-making event was beneficial to the school community. In addition, on a micro-scale, we are amazed at how many people joined our club throughout the year and participated in our events. It being the very first time any of us has taken on the a challenge of addressing a major societal problem through a club in our school, we believe that we have done a great job working together as a team to spread our mission statement and seize every opportunity we can get to promote our club.
Short-term Outcomes: We are confident that our stress balls have helped people de-stress before bed. A girl came up to one of our board members and thanked us for hosting the event and told us she has been bringing the stress ball with her wherever she goes. Even after the event, our board members still see people who bring the stress balls to school. Although we could not follow all 50+ of the stress ball making event attendees home and make sure they got 9 hours of sleep, we can take their word for it because at our event we made sure to note how important it is to get a good night's sleep. Long-term Outcomes: We have had a psychological impact on many students. Suzie John and Apollonia Cuneo, our co-founders, gave a speech about our club at the school-wide Sandy Hook assembly. We know that we have made sleep a more prevalent topic around our school and have change people's viewpoints as to how important sleep is.
Long-term Outcomes/Data: As team members, we know we have instilled long term values about the importance of sleep in the members of our club and school community. We know we have begun planning a very exciting sustainable project (murals) and are proud of the permanent teamwork skills we have established. We have also made a long-term friend, Julie Flygare (CEO of Project Sleep) whom we will keep in close contact with and carry out future plans with. In the slideshow below of the 20+ surveys we received after our school-wide stress ball making event, one can see how positively impactful our efforts have been on our peers.
Above: Alejandra Alamilla with her stress ball and personalized sleep tip (that our club members made prior to the event to pass out to participants)