SAS Warriors

The SAS Warriors have had an amazing few months at the Salmon Arm Bulldog Boxing Club. We started each weekly boxing session with a check in. Staff and students alike were asked to decide how they were feeling (on a scale of 1-10) before and after the once/week boxing session. During the 8 weeks of checkin’s our average mood gain was over 3points.

Before the workout, the“Warriors” were asked to get centered by listening to a variety of pre recorded motivationalspeeches selected by Peggy Maerz, Salmon Arm Bulldogs Boxing Coach. The Warriors then did a warm-up, followed by different bag and focus mitt drills,cardio training, core work, stretching,and post workout “check-ins”. Jamie August sums up how the boxing made the students feel, when she says, “after coming here, my mood would change and …I’d feel like I wanted to go and do something. I had this energy to do something.” Skylar Bailey reported that it helped a lot with stress. He states, “It’s like you let it out, so you can be calmer when you got back to school. I let all my anger and frustration out at boxing and I wouldn’t get all wound into the drama like I might have been before”.

Other student students reported:

  • They don’t fight any more.
  • I can walk away from conflict. No interest in it anymore.
  • Feels like I belong somewhere.

Many great things have come out of the boxing program.

  • Interviewed by the Salmon Arm Observer

A live interview on “the Voice of the Shuswap”

The SAS Warriorswere sponsored by Canadian Mental Health Association to participate in the Ride Don’t Hide event. The SAS Warrior raised over $1100.00 for local Mental Health Services. All youth riders and Peggy Maerz biked the full distance of 54km.They won special jerseys for being the team that raised the most funds for this special event.

6 SAS Warriors also participated in “Together Shuswap”. A local community event where community members and youth were brought together to assess the needs of the communities and plan services and activities to support those needs. The SAS Warriors were amazing leaders and ambassadors at this event.

The SAS Warrior program has been such a success and we would like to thank the Healthy Schools Network for the grant that helped us extend the program for an additional 8 weeks. It was during this additional 8 weeks that we asked the students to start looking at how the boxing was affecting their moods and how that translated to other things like having more energy and being able to be focused and productive in school. It is amazing all the spin offs from this program. The SAS Warriors are currently looking at ways to continue this program next year and hopefully in years to come.

Melanie Jansen, Aboriginal Education Worker, SAS Jackson Campus

Laura Paiement, SD83 Healthy Schools Coordinator

Shannon Hecker, SD83 Mental Health Counselor, Secondary

Lyle Chapman, SD83 Counselor, SAS Jackson Campus