On the bulletin boards along the hallway to the dining hall, pictures of Peer Support members are posted to help students identify their fellow classmates. If the photos are not helpful, then the baby blue sweaters on campus will definitely work. 

Peer Support is a group of students who work to support the community through different activities. They meet on C and G days during X period to brainstorm and execute different activities. Abby Beamer (‘22), Emma Marshall (‘22), and Tate Vaccaro (‘22) lead different teams among Peer Support. This year, their goal is connectivity. 

After a year of being online, Abby, Emma, and Tate have been hard at work to reconnect students on campus. Last year during the pandemic, Peer Support was still working hard to support their classmates, and is now working hard to spend more time together with the student body. “We did a lot behind the scenes [during the pandemic], so it has been really nice to be able to do more stuff with the community,” exclaimed Emma. 

Over the past few months, Peer Support has been hosting a plethora of events—big to small—such as Fun Friday and ornament decorating. “We really put a focus on having fun events and physical in-person things whether that’s kickball, poster making during  Gratitude Week, or different events like that to create that sense of community that is so integral to Bishop’s,” said Abby. 

During the week of Thanksgiving, Peer Support hosted Gratitude Week, giving out warm apple cider the first day. The next day, students could send candy grams to fellow classmates that they were thankful for. On Wednesday, there was a banner making event for the kitchen staff that students could participate in.  Emma is in charge of these larger events. To help students de-stress from cumulatives, Emma and her team have hosted Stress Less Week. Lots of fun activities such as therapy dogs have been implemented for the students. 

Not forgetting the smaller events, Abby Beamer and her team have worked hard to create fun activities like Fun Fridays where games of corn-hole and spike-ball are set up for students to play together. Other fun activities include student versus teacher dodgeball and kickball games during upper school lunch. With the middle schoolers, Peer Support visits their advisories, talking to them as well and giving them some snacks. 

Not long ago, the monthly Peer Support newsletter was sent out. The fun letter is a way to communicate with students virtually about healthy coping mechanisms, and the ones behind it are Tate Vaccaro and her team. They are also in charge of the Peer Support Instagram and the small videos students see in advisory known as Peer Support on the Street. “[The goal] of these videos is to make you smile,” Tate said.

In their meetings, they always start with weather, where they describe how they feel through weather. Truly, Peer Support is working hard to reunite students back together, so let’s acknowledge their efforts and participate in the events they are hosting.