By MARIA RIVERA
Contributing Writer
For many years, the sanctuary has been a place where students can come and have a safe space. Every semester, there are a variety of activities and volunteer opportunities that the sanctuary offers to students to help destress, connect, and have some fun.
As the college faces closure to its campus, the sanctuary will keep its doors open to all students as well as continue their activities throughout this final semester.
Joan Horgan, the director of spiritual life, explained how important it is to allow ourselves to feel our emotions as many times as we try to hide or avoid them. And at the same time, it is also important to look for things that make us happy. “I think it helps for all of us to remember that there is something after things fall apart,” Horgan said.
The sanctuary has two clubs that run every week that are open to all students. The Happiness Club, which is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 3 p.m. and the Yoga Club on Thursdays at 6 p.m. Both of these clubs offer a space where students can come in and talk about anything they are feeling, as well as engaging in activities that could help with those feelings.
In the Happiness Club, they cover several things such as how we deal with sadness, or anger – every week is a little different. “Sometimes we’re drawing or doing art projects or sometimes we’re having a conversation about a different theme for the week,” said Horgan. She explained that one of the main things that people enjoy is getting to meet others and knowing that they are being heard.
Suzanne Ibrahim, a senior at the college, talked about how the sanctuary has helped her. “As a commuter student, they have a lot of events so I’ve been able to socialize more. I’ve made a lot of friends with people who are in the sanctuary,” she said. She enjoys the activities that are done and feels that she has even learned from them.
“It’s something that I look forward to every week, it’s kind of like a little bit of a break between school and work and all this other chaos,” Ibrahim said. During one of the activities that the students did in the sanctuary they wrote love letters to themselves and Ibrahim talked about how it was nice to write and think about that. Her advice to other students would be to “take it one day at a time… and give yourself time.”
This semester the sanctuary would also like to try to do an “inspired concert” which would be an open mic so people could play, sing, or read poems that inspire them. They would also like to possibly start a cooking class on Fridays.
The sanctuary has open arms for any student. “Especially right now, it can be important for folks to feel like somebody sees you, hears you, knows where you are this week and so people are always welcome to drop in, it’s an open invite,” Horgan said.
