Hands to Heart Center – Yoga for the People is a non-profit service connecting yoga teachers with volunteer opportunities in low-income, under-served neighborhoods of Boston. Hands to Heart Center was created by Susan Lovett, in April, 2014. Susan is a licensed social worker, licensed K-8 teacher and registered yoga teacher who has worked with urban, low-income youth and families in the greater Bo
ston area for over 20 years. During her 9-month yoga teacher training with Open Doors in 2013 and 2014, Susan began offering yoga classes and workshops to the students at the Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester. The students really enjoyed their yoga experiences and Susan began receiving more and more requests from other teachers and social workers to provide yoga for their students. Through word of mouth, staff members at local community-based social service agencies heard about this, and requests came in from those sites. As a yoga student, social worker and yoga teacher, Susan has witnessed the many beneficial and transformative effects of yoga. Knowing that yoga is generally inaccessible in some neighborhoods of Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan that have the most low-income families, the highest community and domestic violence rates and the highest rates of asthma, obesity and trauma in the state of Massachusetts was the motivation for creating Hands to Heart Center. Yoga is an effective and enjoyable practice, but also an expensive one. The primary goals of Hands to Heart Center are to remove obstacles to learning yoga and to activate yoga teachers as volunteers. Yoga teachers and teachers-in-training who are interested in volunteering to teach yoga classes on a one-time,quarterly, monthly, bi-weekly or weekly basis can register with Hands to Heart Center and will receive emails with details about existing and new opportunities. Volunteers can select their preferred dates and locations and Susan will share all of the details about the sites (address, directions, parking and public transportation information, a description of the room that will be used and information about the targeted population) and answer any questions volunteers may have. In 2014, Hands to Heart Center volunteer yoga teachers provided weekly yoga classes at the Frederick School, the Grove Hall Community Center, the Roxbury Y and the Mattapan Library and one-time classes at the Burke High School, the Sumner Elementary School and the Uphams Corner Library . The classes included Curvy Yoga for Women, Kids Yoga, Family Yoga, Yoga as Trauma Support, Adult Yoga, Yoga for Seniors, Yoga en Espanol and Yoga for Students with Special Needs. With YOUR hands and YOUR heart, we’ll be able to continue sharing the gift of yoga with those most in-need who don’t have this resource in their lives. Yoga to the People!
