Moxy the therapy dog came to help students relax thanks to Keene State College’s Office of Student Diversity, Equity and Belonging.
On April 3 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., the Office of Student Diversity, Equity, and Belonging, the Wellness Center, and Monadnock Therapy Pets came together to hold the Paws 2 Play event. Hosted in the Cultural Center at 81 Blake St., students who came were greeted by a variety of snacks and refreshments. There were tables set up with different relaxing activities for use, such as board games and coloring books.
The main attraction of the event was Moxy, a five-year-old Boxer, who was a therapy dog from Monadnock Therapy Pets. Different groups were bought in five at a time to spend time petting and sitting with Moxy. Moxy laid on her side mostly, and responded happily to scratches behind the ears from attendees. Junior Hannah Andrewchuk got to spend time with Moxy and also used the coloring books that were set up at tables. “It was pretty awesome. It was therapeutic, and it calmed me down. I got to go into the Cultural Center, and I didn’t know they gave away women’s products,” Andrewchuk stated.
When asked about the Wellness Center’s involvement with the event, Coordinator of Wellness Education Tiffany Matthews stated, “We’ve actually been doing this for years, the Wellness Center has been doing a program called Paws 2 Play. It’s usually something that we do just in the fall and we go into the residential halls. We’ve been doing that for several years actually, and we also collaborate with them on Relaxation Break, which is the Monday of finals week.”
The Office of Student Diversity, Equity, and Belonging’s Coordinator of LGBTQ Student Support Hunter Kirschner provided insight into why the Cultural Center was chosen to be the location for the event.
“Typically it happens in resident halls and just by nature of the resident halls on campus it wasn’t accessible to all students. Tiffany Matthews of the Wellness Center was looking for different locations that would be accessible to different students and so we have the Cultural Center as a wonderful location to host this.” Kirschner continued, “We’re fairly new to this space, not a lot of students know that we have a cultural center or where we are, so this helps.”
Zach Murphy can be contacted at
zmurphy@kscequinox.com
“We’re fairly new to this space, not a lot of students know that we have a Cultural Center or where we are, so this helps,”
HUNTER KIRSCHNER
COORDINATOR OF LGBTQ STUDENT SUPPORT
