Community Partnerships Power Practice
There’s nothing better than practicing Yoga outdoors with friends, family, and live music—unless you’re doing all of this and serving the community by supporting the efforts of a hard-working nonprofit organization. This combination has been the great effort of Yoga Vista’s Power in the Park series of classes. Yoga Vista has been putting on outdoor Yoga classes in Playa Vista’s Concert Park to benefit both local and worldwide charities since October, 2011. For that first event, they teamed up with the National Breast Cancer Foundation; it was so successful that it became their annual October flagship affair.
Throughout Power in the Park’s first year, they have held monthly fundraising classes. In these, the community gravitated toward certain themes: pets, schools, and anything having to do with children. Still supporting these charities, for 2013, they shifted the schedule from monthly to quarterly. Yoga Vista owner and teacher Keary Bixby, “We want to continue with three or four a year so we can keep on meeting new charities but also stick with ones our community relates to.”
The next Power in the Park event is on May 11 with a class to support Girls on the Run in Los Angeles, an organization that meets with girls between the ages of 8 and 13 to help them build self-esteem, teamwork, and foster the ideal of inner beauty. “They gather like a community running group,” explains Bixby. “I enjoyed talking to them because I played sports throughout high school, so I know that being in a group setting with a bunch of girls can help build self-esteem.”
Yoga Vista cross-promotes with each organization through various avenues, including newsletters, Facebook pages, and local businesses. For each event, Bixby sources raffle prizes from people she knows in the Playa Vista community. For the May installment, prizes include dog training through Innovative Dog Training, a yoga mat and classes from Yoga Vista, and tea from Tea of Kind. Eat Well LA, a local health food delivery company, will be providing breakfast for everyone who participates on the 11th.
“Our goal is to make the event fun so people hang out and get to know each other,” Bixby said. “My favorite part is the communal aspect. People breathing for each other, breathing for the kids we’re raising money for.” Everyone involved learns about the charities and ways they can become involved.
Power in the Park takes requests for partnerships, including a student’s suggestion to work with the Huntington’s Disease Society of America. It was only when her student spoke before a Yoga class when Bixby realized how close to home her story was. “She explained onstage that her grandfather and father both had Huntington’s disease, and she has a 50/50 chance of getting it. She has chosen at this time not to know whether she is going to get it; she just lives her life and lives it fully. It was extremely inspiring.”
Putting on the event has expanded Bixby’s Yoga practice as well as her community awareness. “Let me tell you, sitting there and listening to some of the stories, and then doing Yoga and setting an intention as a group for these charities is extremely special,” said Bixby. “There have been lots of tears. It’s amazing.”
For more information on Power in the Park’s initiatives, visit: yogavistastudio.com/powerinthepark
For more information on Yoga Vista Studio: yogavistastudio.com
{author credit} Jordan Younger is…
Jordan Younger is a student at Loyola Marymount University and a Yoga teacher in training who loves the ocean, being outdoors, and tasting delicious vegetarian food around L.A. She hopes write novels in the future, and if she is not on the yoga mat you will probably find her at the beach, hiking with her friends, or playing with her adorable nieces.