Got 4th of July Plans? How about some Downward Dogs with those hot dogs?

Join Gina and us this 4th of July for a benefit yoga class to help support a Ugandan orphanage, the House of Hope. Gina will teach a specialty class pairing vigorous vinyasa flow with supportive partner yoga. Be ready to experience the freedom and fun of partner inversions, and discover that through interdependence, our independent practice can grow by leaps and bounds!

The down low on the cause: Gina has been working with local Zoe Wakoff to raise funds for the House of Hope Initiative. When Zoe spent one spring teaching at the House of Hope orphanage in the Kyazanga village in Uganda, she witnessed the extraordinary struggle to provide room and food—one meal per day—for its children in a region mostly characterized by extreme poverty. The House of Hope orphanage was founded nearly five years ago in response to the rising number of children orphaned after losing their parents to AIDS, a country-wide phenomenon that has affected some 1.2 million children.*

In spite of these enormous challenges, the orphanage has cared for 100 children and acts as an elementary school for more than 200 Ugandans. However, the lack of sustained financial support compounded by a recent raid on the orphanage, including the destruction of classrooms and a nearly finished dormitory, threaten to undermine the House of Hope’s mission. Since her return, Zoe partnered with humanitarian organization, World Action for Humanity, to raise $15,000 for the orphanage to start a farm in the hopes that it will offer a sustained way of living for the children and the surrounding community.

“The money that would be saved each year in food costs is monumental,” she writes in her donation request. The orphanage could afford more medical care for the children, some of whom are HIV positive, with the money saved. Zoe estimates, with a farm, it would cost under $20 to feed one child for an entire year, an incredible savings.

We’d like to send a big THANK YOU to the mighty yogis who contributed over $600 in the first two benefit classes Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. We look forward to seeing you this 4th of July!

House of Hope Benefit Class
Sunday, July 4, 2010
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
w/ Gina Newlin
All Levels Welcome
Suggested Donation, $20

*According to 2007 figures by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization