February 27th marked a historic day for the Belmont Hill Peer Leader program. Seven boys from the program, all of whom happened to be juniors, traveled to the Winsor School in an effort to collaborate: Juan-Pablo Fernandez del Castillo ‘25, Christopher McEvoy ‘25, Thomas Sheehan ‘25, Simon Henao ‘25, Jack Nolan ‘25, Gabe Umlas ‘25, and Brady Paquette ‘25. Looking to possibly partner with Belmont Hill for future programming, Winsor’s peer leader group, known as Peer Support, reached out with aspirations for a joint meeting.
The meeting had a lively, yet productive style working to engage the ten to fifteen Winsor girls and seven Belmont Hill boys. The two groups came together to identify where each respective program could use improvement and brainstormed a variety of ideas through student-led conversations. After breaking up into smaller groups, it seemed that everyone felt a little more comfortable with each other. The meeting concluded with snacks and resulted in a variety of ways to work together: some of the main ones being joint advisories and a run back of the popular fishbowl.
Thomas Sheehan ‘25 mentions that he was especially amped up about attending and being able to see another perspective of how a sister school ran its peer leader program. When asked about follow-up collaboration and opinions on what he thought of the meeting, Thomas noted his optimism and is eager to get the ball rolling: “I would like to collaborate on something like the fish bowl where we work with some of the younger guys and girls with their parents. I think that would be a cool event to do with them.”
The Peer Leaders hope to see program-run events that can be implmeted into the community that allow for another outlet to our sister school. Snacks were provided and ideas flourished—in my book, that’s all you need for a successful meeting.
