Street Yoga Newsletter, November 2009

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In This Issue

• SY in the Willamette Week Give!Guide.
• Events and Workshops in Portland and NYC.
• Upcoming Training-- SY Advanced Training (our first!)
• Gratitude (it's always that time of year!) and more.

Give!Guide

Street Yoga is grateful to have been selected by Willamette Week for inclusion in the 2009 Give!Guide.

Giving is now open, so please support Street Yoga now, and also win great prizes!

We come to Street Yoga ourselves from a place of deep gratitude, grateful that we have enough to eat every day, grateful that we have a safe home, loving family, dear friends and work that is both challenging and enriching. At Street Yoga, we feel that our work is to extend that sense of home outward from our blessed circle to include others in our community who are not so fortunate as we. We share with them yoga, meditation, compassionate communication skills and insights into mindful parenting practices. Many people often ask why bring these tools to people when they are concerned with the more basic needs of food and shelter.  Our answer is that breathing mindfully is a survival skill, in many ways as fundamental as food and shelter.  We teach children and their families how to return to their breath in times of crisis. We also teach youth how to be in their bodies in a way that creates joy and wellness. Give! Guide is  a great opportunity to join our community of supporters.

In addition to the great incentives offered to donors by the folks at Give!Guide, Street Yoga will be offering the following gifts as a special thank-you:

• Donors giving $50 or more to Street Yoga will receive one free yoga class at a participating studio.
• Donors giving $100 or more to Street Yoga will receive 2 free yoga classes at a participating studio.
• Donors giving $500 or more to Street Yoga will receive a 10-class-card at a participating studio.
• In addition, donors at the $100 level or more will receive a Street Yoga t-shirt.

Thank you so much to our Give!Guide supporters, who have so generously offered their services and support in the Street Yoga Give!Guide campaign: The Julie Lawrence Yoga Center,  Yoga Pearl, The People's Yoga, Potentials Yoga Studio, Sellwood Yoga, The Bhaktishop, Yoga Shala, Holiday's Health and Fitness Yoga, and The Yoga Union.

For more information about the Give!Guide, click here. 

The sixth annual Give!Guide is an annual holiday season fundraiser that serves as a unique vehicle for generating donations for a collection of Portland area non-profit organizations. 

Donors can make contributions online via the Give!Guide website. Donations are accepted from the date of the Give!Guide publication (Wednesday, November 11), to midnight on December 31.

Program Update

We have added several new partner sites this year that receive weekly Street Yoga classes: ChristieCare, Cordero House, ConeXiones, NAYA, Children's Relief Nursery, Salvation Army West Women's and Children's Shelter. This puts us up to 22 classes at 18 partnering sites every week. Awesome! Thank you for helping make this possible! To read about all our client partners, click here.

Upcoming Workshops and Events

• Watch the Sweat Drop

  A New Years Eve Yoga Class and Party benefiting Street Yoga
  When: Thursday, December 31, 2009

  doors: 10:00pm; class:10:30; champagne savasana at midnight
  Cost: $25

  Bikram Yoga Lower East Side
  172 Allen ST 2nd FL.
  NY, NY 10002

  For more information on this celebration, go to our events page

• Share your passion during the Holidays with Street Yoga

  Lululemon Athletica in the Pearl is hosting a drive for athletic clothing for use by kids and adults in weekly Street Yoga classes at shelters, schools and treatment programs.
  When: Friday November 27 - December 31, 2009

  Donate new or gently used athletic clothing to Street Yoga programs! Thank you Lululemon!

  Lululemon in the Pearl District
  1231 NW Couch St; Portland, OR 97209 (503) 274-0007

  Thank you for your support! 

• Karma Yoga Class and Brunch: How May We Serve?

  Learn about Street Yoga and The Give Back Yoga Foundation, committed to advancing yoga and bringing yoga to hard-to-reach populations. Join us for this event, which consists of both a class and a networking brunch.

  When: Sunday, January 17, 2010

  Yoga class: 9:00-10:00 am, networking brunch: 10:00- 11:00 am

  Lululemon Union Square
  15 Union Square West, NY, NY 10003 (212)675-5286

  Donation: $20 per person, includes both yoga class and brunch (all proceeds benefit Street Yoga and The Give Back Yoga Foundation)

  You can find information about the location here.


• Yoga on the Dance Floor with Ekayani and the Tom Glide Space
  US Tour 2009 - 2010. World class dance music combined with live vocals from the spiritual tradition of India.
  When: Saturday, April 24, 2010, 9pm - midnight

  A Benefit Party for Street Yoga

  Cost: $20 per person

  Yoga Shala North Williams
  3808 North Williams , Portland, OR 97227 (503)963-YOGA

  You can find information about the artists here. 

Upcoming Trainings 

Advanced Teacher Training

Seattle Teacher Training

This new training will be in Portland, OR on December 4,5,6. It is geared towards people who have taken our core teacher training or have significant experience teaching yoga and working in a social service context (though they don't have to have been at the same time). 

Learn about:

• the physiological and psychological characteristics of trauma on the body and mind
• how yoga and mindfulness can heal in the wake of trauma
• communication techniques to contain and defuse conflict and better advocate for yourself and those in your care.
• best practices for teaching yoga to specific populations, focusing on addiction recovery, abuse survivors, homeless youth, young moms, kids in detention, and more.

Sign up now 

Upcoming Core Trainings 

We offer a weekend teachers' training for community members interested in learning how yoga serves vulnerable young people and their families, not only homeless youth, but young people who are faced with challenges stemming from overcoming the pain of sexual and physical abuse, homelessness, mental illness or familial substance addiction and other traumas.

The training is open to experienced yoga teachers as well as those with little to no experience with yoga. In the past we've had massage therapists, nurses, social workers, teachers and many others join us for a weekend of connection, learning and soul-building.

• New York City, NY January 15-17, 2010; Sign up now.
• Eugene, OR, February 5-7, 2010; Sign up now.
• Washington, DC, February 26-28, 2010; Sign up now.
• Portland, OR, March 26-28; Sign up now.
• Tucson, AZ, March 26-28; Sign up now.
• Chicago, IL, April 9-11, 2010; Sign up now.
• Philadelphia, PA May 21-23, 2010; Sign up now
• San Diego, CA June 16-18, 2010; Sign up now.

Gratitude 

Image courtesy of Campbell Salgado Photography

Thanks to Hearthsong Yoga for hosting Street Yoga's 2nd Annual Fall into Gratitude event. Thanks also to all the sponsors who who helped make the event such a success!

Thanks to Sellwood Yoga for including Street Yoga in the Sellwood Yoga Opening event, a benefit for Street Yoga. We are so grateful for the support. 

Thanks to Hot Yoga Wellness in Toronto and University Family YMCA in Seattle for hosting the Teacher Trainings this month. 

Thanks to RadiSys for donating 150 yoga blocks for Street Yoga classes.

Christophe Leroy of Sacred Hoop Healing Ways just began supporting Street Yoga through his work as an energy healing practitioner, based on shamanic traditions of the Andes.  He is supporting Street Yoga by donating 5% of all proceeds from his private sessions through the end of 2009.  You can find out more about and Christophe’s practice at Awakenings Wellness Center. Thank you Christopher for your support.

Thank you to Outside In for the chance to serve at the recent Health and Wellness Day at the Clackamas Service Center. Street Yoga provided footcare services and tea to 45 homeless individuals during the day.

Twitter and Facebook

Look for web updates on Twitter and Facebook. To follow us on Twitter click here. And for our Facebook page click here to join. This is a great way to stay updated on Street Yoga events and trainings and to stay in touch with the Street Yoga community.

Street Yoga Apparel For Sale

We have a beautiful new t-shirt design that features Street Yoga's take on Ganesh. The theme of the t-shirts is Triumph. We have all colors and sizes - you can check them out here. All proceeds benefit Street Yoga.  Street Yoga t-shirts make great gifts for the holidays!

Donating to Street Yoga

We deeply appreciate your support. Any contributions you can make will help us help the youth, one breath at a time. If you want to donate directly, please click here. 

Namaste

thank you and many smiles and blessings to you!