Yoga Care Foundation Launch Intended to Support Education, Research, and Outreach

Yoga Yoga announces the launch of the Yoga Care Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) Research and Educational Corporation. This yoga-centric organization’s fundraising activities will support research, education, and community outreach around the benefits and practice of yoga.

The Yoga Care Foundation has three primary missions, which are to provide access to yoga instruction for disadvantaged populations; to research, explore and inform about the physiological, psychological and therapeutic effects of yoga; and to educate the public about the traditional teachings and benefits of yoga.

The Foundation was formed with the intention of enhancing yoga’s role in addressing the health and well-being of the community at large. “A growing body of scientific research studies have shown that people with a wide variety of health conditions, including back pain, sleep disorders, arthritis, and breast cancer, can benefit greatly by practicing yoga,” explains Rich Goldstein, Managing Partner at Yoga Yoga. “Our goal with the Foundation is to educate the general public about yoga’s therapeutic applications and significantly add to the existing research in a way that will support yoga being embraced as a tool for self-care and improving quality of life.”

One of the first projects the Yoga Care Foundation will fund is an outcome study to research the effects of yoga on individuals’ health and well-being when they first begin a yoga practice. The Foundation will provide infrastructure support and partial operational funding for the study, which is being developed and coordinated with an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital at the Harvard Medical School. Additionally, the Foundation is in the process of creating a national community oriented yoga-grant program to support individual initiatives focused on bringing yoga to disadvantaged groups. The first round of grants will be awarded at the end of 2007.

About Yoga Yoga, LLC Yoga Yoga is Austin’s premier source for yoga with four locations and over 350 classes weekly. With more than 90 registered yoga teachers, Yoga Yoga provides a wide variety of yoga styles for new and continuing students, including prenatal, postnatal, and children’s yoga. Yoga Yoga Teacher Training offers a nationally recognized program with 200 and 500-hour courses approved by the Yoga Alliance. For more information, contact Yoga Yoga at (512) 358-1200 or visit www.yogayoga.com.