With a total of 3,000 students who participated and benefitted from their programs, Helping Everyone Reach Optimal Health, remains a very active club on campus with around 60 members to help promote healthy lifestyles. In Fall 2013, a total of 1,400 students participated and benefitted from the clubs efforts. 

The adviser of HEROH, Mariah Weber has been advising the club for the past year and a half. She is also the wellness coordinator. 

Addie M. Borah, assistant director of student activities, said that the club was first recognized in 1995 as “WAITT: We’re All In This Together.” It changed to HEROH in 2003. 

According to Weber, 35 to 40 of the members are active and on average the club does one event per week. 

“We’re a club that gets more involved,” Weber said. 

Some of the major events that HEROH puts on include two 5K runs, one in the fall and spring. The Welcome Back Kickoff Dance is also put on by HEROH. With this event it introduces new students and freshmen to the club. One of the most popular events is Pre-Final Stress Free Activity Days.

The event is put on each fall and spring semester around finals weeks. 

Other events include a few blood drives and many Residential Life presentations on health promotion. These are done by request. Members of HEROH will go to the residence hall that requested them and speak on anything health related. Some of the topics include campus dining, exercise, alcohol awareness and anywhere from body image to safe sex. 

According to Lauren Uttecht, senior and president of HEROH, another event put on by the club is Wellness Wednesday. It promotes awareness about various health topics including cervical health, eating disorders, safe spring break, sexual assault and many more. 

Uttecht said the goal of the club is to provide resources for students and encourage them to live a healthier lifestyle. She said the club is more like a team of peer educators that operate as an extension of the Wellness Center to provide health promotion campus wide. Uttecht joined the club in January 2011 after seeing several flyers around campus. She thought it looked interesting and decided to check it out. 

Junior Allison Guindon, vice president of HEROH, said the club wants students to always be prepared and aware of the dangers that they face when it comes to their health. They want to provide resources to help with any issues that may involve physical, mental, emotional, social or spiritual. She joined the club two years ago because a friend was in it. 

“I went to the first meeting and was immediately hooked because it is a club that really wants to do good things for the school and for the community,” Guindon said. 

HEROH accepts people of all majors. A majority of the members, according to Weber, are in a health care related field, but they are open to anybody who has a passion for it. 

Within the club, there are different committees. There are officers and several sub committees including activity, education, recruitment and retention, and public relations committees. In each of these committees there are leaders as well. 

To become a member, students must fill out an application and provide contact information. It is not competitive, but the club requires the application in order to get a small bio of the student. 

“It is a great group if you want volunteer experience on your resume…. We try to mold our members into leaders,” Weber said. 

Many of the members of HEROH have found that their experience with the club has been very beneficial and they encourage more students to join. 

Guindon said, “I love getting to meet and chat with new people and HEROH gives me the opportunity to do that a lot… I truly believe that HEROH is a club that wants to make the school and the community a better and healthier place to live and I absolutely love being a part of it.” 

HEROH meets twice a month, every other Thursday, in the Wellness Center conference room.