About
Offering the Difference
Yoga for Educators
Yoga for Educators is possible through The Greater Mercy Foundation and mutually beneficial relationships with Wimberley ISD SHAC and The Wellness Center, The Watershed Association, local yoga teachers, and Wimberley Education Foundation. This project benefits our hard working often over-extended educators as well as the community at-large.
One of our Wisdom Circles with Wimberley ISD (WISD) stakeholders focuses on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of students and faculty. The impetus for the Yoga for Educators project derived from a district faculty and staff survey conducted during the 2022-23 school year by the WISD SHAC (School Health Advisory Committee). One of the most compelling results of the survey was that educators requested more support for their overall mental health and wellbeing. Yoga classes were one of the most common and specific write-in request to support health and wellbeing.
With this request in mind, WISD was granted funding from Wimberley Education Foundation to fund a portion of this project, and TGMF will provide the rest of the funding and material resources. Additionally, TGMF will coordinate and host a weekly after school yoga class that is free/no cost to all educators. The yoga class will take place at a centrally located, easily accessible off-campus site.
Since the pandemic, local community yoga offerings have been significantly reduced in terms of the number of classes and locations. For those working a more traditional Monday-Friday work schedule, late afternoon and evening classes have been difficult to find. Additionally, those working in education are suffering burn-out that often leads to poor mental and physical wellbeing. This is also true for many in the workforce who are looking for more opportunities for a more balanced lifestyle. Yoga classes are one answer toward this balance.
In order to meet the need specifically in service to educators’ requests and to also fill this larger community need for more yoga offerings, TGMF will extend this weekly yoga class to include the larger community. While the class will be provided at no cost to educators, we will ask for a donation-based fee from the other community participants.
TGMF’s yoga project will provide health and wellbeing support through a regular, affordable, local yoga class for those, like educators, experiencing burn-out. Ultimately, through this project, we aim to support the wellbeing of those who provide daily support to our children and youth in the classroom.
The Greater Mercy Foundation and the Watershed Association share a mutual desire to collaborate to create impactful and uplifting programs within our community. We have connected around various projects in the past to preserve our natural spaces and highlight the connection between human health and the health of our land and water, and the spaces that we share to connect and learn.
We are thrilled to be engaging the Watershed Association in a focused collaboration with WISD to offer a series of yoga classes this fall at the Watershed Association’s recently acquired property at the Oaks at Blue Hole (501 Old Kyle Rd).
The Watershed’s new site serves as the gateway to Blue Hole Park in the heart of downtown Wimberley and is planned to be the home of a community gathering space that will function as a hub for environmental education, artistic expression, cultural and performing arts, gardens, and shared contemplative spaces to experience nature.
The Watershed’s comprehensive planning process will take place over the next 2-3 years which will affect the long term use of the property in its current state. The Greater Mercy Foundation’s offerings to WISD will be accommodated for the 2023-2024 school year. The project with TGMF is unique in its scope and time frame to accommodate the dynamic nature of the overall site plan and project.
TGMF will host yoga classes at the future site for the Watershed Association’s FLOW Center (For the Love Of Water) at Oaks at Blue Hole 501 Old Kyle Rd. Yoga classes will occur in the large sanctuary space at the front of the property closest to Old Kyle Road. Once weekly classes are from 4:15-5:15 pm starting September 13, 2023 through May 1, 2024 (no classes the week of Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, or Spring Break week).
For more details about the Watershed Association and their project, please follow the link to learn more about the New Water-Focused Community Gathering Space.
TGMF will manage the classes, contract the teachers for the classes, ensure all participants fill out liability waivers, supply minimal yoga equipment for those who do not have their own, and collect donations at the door. Class size will be limited to 40 participants.
This project and the collaborators have come together at a time when the support and balance will make a meaningful difference in the lives of educators and all of the students that they serve. This collaboration has the potential to touch every corner of our community. We are grateful for all the stakeholders who have and will help make Yoga for Educators a success.
meet our yoga teachers
Each teacher brings unique gifts our classes. The array of talented instructors have helped build our community, guiding us in movement and form, inviting us into our bodies and spirit, opening us to love and laughter, and leading us toward our own nature. We are so grateful for your leadership. Meet the Yoga Teachers
This project has unfolded so beautifully. Each teacher, participant, partner, and donor has been an integral part in co-creating a yoga community.
