Pepperdine’s Resilience-Informed Skills Education (RISE) program hosts biweekly Crafternoons for students to have mindful relaxation.
These events take place every other Tuesday of the Fall 2024 semester and occur in The Lighthouse. The event allows students to come and go as they please, providing students with crafts, food and a different RISE mindfulness lesson each week. RISE employee Audrey Costa leads the biweekly event this year.
“I’ve been going since my freshman year, so I was very excited to take it on, to lead it,” Costa said.
The Crafternoons are designed to help engage students with the RISE community on campus and give students a low commitment opportunity to attend events. Some students feel that the drop-in event hours give them an opportunity to dedicate more of their time to crafting.
“Crafternoon is a very low barrier to entry event,” Costa said. “It’s a come and go event and we’ve got food and it’s not a large time commitment.”
The nature of this reoccurring event gives students the necessary consistency to keep Crafternoons in their calendar, Costa said.
What to Expect Each Crafternoon
During each Crafternoon, food is available for the first few people who show up. Crafts and a presentation that focuses on a dimension from the RISE curriculum are also a staple of these events.
The dimensions that RISE focuses on during these events comes from their RISE Roadmap to Resilience, Costa said.
The six dimensions of RISE resilience that are presented on during Crafternoons are physical, social, cognitive, spiritual, life skills and service, according to the RISE Roadmap to Resilience handbook.
On Nov. 5, the Crafternoon event was centered around the physical dimension of RISE’s roadmap.
The presentation covered tips for engaging in movement, prioritizing sleep and practicing healthy eating.
Along with a presentation each week, there are a few consistent crafts provided, such as: origami, paint and canvases, coloring books and yarn for knitting, Costa said.
However, there is a different featured craft each week that students can dive into.
Students were able to decorate wooden ornaments which could be put on gifts or Christmas trees. These ornaments were garden themed, Costa said.
“I like to kind of switch up the featured craft,” Costa said.
Costa said she encourages students to come to Crafternoons so they can socialize with their friends.
The RISE community in general is worth engaging with because of the life tools they give you, Costa said.
“There’s lots of tools you can learn through the curriculum and through our events that enable you to live a very holistic type of lifestyle,” Costa said.
Some students, like senior Olivia Mastalerz, said they also see the value in RISE’s Crafternoons.
“It’s a nice way to recenter me for the month,” Mastalerz said.
College can get so busy, that Mastalerz said it’s nice to have a dedicated time to reset.
Mastalerz also shared her favorite craft activity at Crafternoons.
“I always like doing the coloring sheets, cause I think coloring is very therapeutic,” Mastalerz said.
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Contact Mackenzie Krause via email: mackenzie.krause@pepperdine.edu
