By Bryony Deighton, Voice Contributor

UFit collaborated with Wellness Ambassadors to provide free extracurricular activities to benefit Valencia students’ overall health.

Work Hard Wednesday and Play Hard Thursdays are a component of student development that focus on different dimensions of health. Wednesdays are learning days where students focus on the different ways to benefit themselves in a specific dimension of health. Thursdays are activity days where each student gets to participate in a sport of their choice. Whether they choose Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Zumba or Yoga or Racquetball each student has the ability to try every sport they are interested in regardless of experience.

When asked whether he feels like UFit is a welcoming environment for newcomers, 17-year-old Music Production major Jeriel Marti said, “It’s awesome. I started playing. I’m team captain and I’m probably the kid who knows less on the team and it feels great.”

“The whole idea is to provide a program for students, for them to have a free extracurricular program that they can come into after class and take advantage of a free service,” explained Brandon Rodriquez, UFit Supervisor on East Campus.

UFit runs Monday to Thursday with each activity being a different time and day of the week. Activities take place on East Campus, West Campus and Osceola Campus. Each month, UFit holds different events focused on one main component of student development. For the month of November UFit will focus on the Intermural League Playoffs for basketball, volleyball and indoor soccer. Students will be able to attend Yoga on Tuesdays 5:30PM- 6:30PM, Zumba on Wednesdays 6:00PM-7:00PM, and Open Court Racquetball on Thursdays upon request from 6:00Pm- 10:00PM all on East Campus.

Sultan Alhathal, 24-year-old Valencia College General Studies major made it very clear just how popular some activities are. “I saw a couple papers on the doors and I love soccer, so I was like I’ve got to go. I’ve been here now for four semesters, and we all just get along great. There’s a waiting list to get on a team in the soccer league.”

According to UFit, the wellness program was created over a year ago to create a free program for students to relieve stress and be active while continuing to pursue a higher education.