VACAVILLE, Calif. — A Vacaville Girl Scout troop created a wellness “zen den” for Willis Jepson Middle School students after noticing themselves and their peers struggling with mental health through the pandemic.
Troop 20113 consists of lifelong friends Amy Borchert, Cailtlin McGee, Lily Coble, Ayanna Elias and Nikki Magiera who wanted to help students like themselves have a safe place to decompress from the stress of their studies. The girls have known each other since preschool and banded together to create the Jaguar Zen Den.
“We all saw that people in our schools were struggling with just finding a safe space,” said Cailtlin McGee. “When we found out that we could actually help others, it definitely became something we wanted to do.”
Because Jepson had just gotten a new principal and was looking for ideas for a wellness project, teacher Cynthia Coble suggested her daughter's troop work together with the school.
“[The school] jumped on it very quickly and said, ‘Yes, let's do this,’” she said. “They provided a space, and we went from there.”
To earn their Silver Award, the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can get, the troop decided to create a mental health initiative to help their community — even though many of them were never Jepson students.
“They all went to different middle schools. That's kind of the beauty of this project. They came together and had a common purpose at one school, and they didn't really care that it was a school that wasn't their own,” said troop leader Angela Borchert.
The girls proposed a wellness center to the school board and got it approved, allowing them to work alongside the Jepson Wellness Task Force which had previously been using the space but hadn’t seen much interest from students until now.
“I would say we did use it somewhat last year,” said Angi Roe, an eight grade counselor at Jepson. “[But] we have been able to utilize it a lot since it's opened even more recently… it's just been super special for our students to have that place to come and not go cry in the bathroom.”
They went with an ocean theme for the space because they found it relaxing themselves, but eventually “throughout our project, it got a lot more colorful and more welcoming,” said Amy Borchert.
They did hours of research to find the best methods and tools to help someone decompress — leading the zen den to have sensory toys, coloring books, comfortable chairs, puzzles and more.
Some of those tools were donated by the troop while others were purchased, thrifted or created to help the girls learn how to budget their allotted funds and restore/theme items for the space.
Creating the Jaguar Zen Den
“My favorite part was yardsaling because we were able to not only find stuff for the wellness room, we were also able to go out of a [Girl Scout] meeting and have time together to find stuff that we all thought could help,” said Lily Coble.
More students are using the zen den since it opened in the middle of September, nearly eight months after the troop began their plans. School counselors expect more students to use the revamped space as they learn about the resource.
“It's been a fun space to share with students,” said Roe. “We are so grateful for what this space already, in the short time it's been open, has been for us.”
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