The wellness center at Rocky Mountain High School is supposed to be a calm and relaxing place; Gina Defelice always welcomes the people who walk into the room, but what do you really know about her?

Gina Defelice was born September 19, 1986, in Saint Catherines, Ontario, Canada, a town just a little smaller than Fort Collins.  

Defelice’s parents were born there as well and all of them are Canadian citizens.

Defelice’s mom’s side are more English, British and Irish while on her dad’s side are first generation and immigrated from Italy to Canada.

Gina’s parents are no longer together because her parents realized they were better off as friends other than partners, but her parents are still very good friends and still part of each other’s lives.

“On a level, I can relate to students whose parents have divorced. I believe each human being’s experience and family dynamics result in their own unique experience that can be empathized with but never truly understood,” Defelice explained.

As a kid, Defelice was really into theatre and enjoyed plays and everything involved in theatre. She wanted her first job to be working at a children’s theatre company.

“The aspects of creativity, collaboration and problem solving coming together to create something to share with other people,” she mentioned as her favorite part of theatre.

Defelice initially just wanted a theatre education degree. When she was at UNC (University of Northern Colorado), she found out they had a theatre education program, but later on she found out that she did not read the fine print on the papers where it said student teaching was mandatory.

With this, Defelice reached out to Rocky asking if they needed a student teacher and, thankfully, Mrs. Schendel took her in.  

Later on, Defelice got more into English teaching and decided to pursue it later after she was done working in restaurants and student teaching. Defelice decided to sub for a couple semesters at Rocky.

Defelice’s motivation to get through school and life was being able to refine her sense of purpose, connecting with the people in her community as well as always being open with the things she and other people do.

“The most important question is deciding between dogs or cats and I choose snails!” Defelice added.