Tween Yoga Arts and Service Camp

Yoga Art Service Camp’s Mission:

 Our mission is to explore and merge yoga, the arts and service. Students learn tools to reduce the static in their lives and stimulate their innate creativity.

While working on a service project to build a school in Nicaragua with Beyond Asana and buildOn Kristie and Michelle recognized their mutual interest in holistic child development.

With Kristie’s background in teaching and yoga and Michelle’s in art education and design, they found yoga and art  to be very complimentary and wanted to offer a program to give youth the chance to experience both.

During the week each camper was encouraged to express their identity through self portraits. The campers even had a surprise visit from Ivivva and received free yoga mats! Mid week, the campers were encouraged to open up to others through partner/community yoga and a group painting project.

Once a sense of community was established, we talked about the meaning of service and introduced our service project, Students Rebuild: Flowers for Nepal Challenge. With each flower leis we created, “The Bezos Family Foundation will match each garland with $2–up to $200,000–for Save the Children’s humanitarian relief efforts”. The girls used their art skills to create a variety of flower leis.

As part of their service experience, they also offered leis to adult students at Yoga Home. Kristie, having been to Nepal to build another school, directed the campers on Nepal’s custom of presenting the leis, placing them over the recipients head and saying, “Namaste” as the adults came out of class.

At the end of the week, they celebrated producing over 30 leis for the Nepal Challenge. There was a dance party, we made celebration shirts and hosted an art show while showcasing each camper’s favorite yoga pose.

We thank Michelle and Kristie for their creative instruction during this amazing week!