Ten years ago, Yoga For All Movement didn't have an office, a budget, or a single paid staff member. It had yoga teachers devoted to sevā (selfless service in Sanskrit); knocking on the doors of shelters, recovery centers, and community organizations across Santa Cruz County; offering their time and their teaching for free, simply because they believed people who had been shut out of the wellness industry deserved access to it too.

That grassroots spirit never left, but it has grown. What started as a handful of volunteer teachers is now a network of more than 50 trauma-informed teachers, trained through YFAM's own program and supported through free monthly trainings that keep them resourced, connected, and equipped for the populations they serve. Only in the past couple of years have we been able to compensate our teachers at all; compensation remains modest, and funding is never guaranteed year to year.

In a moment when federal and state funding for nonprofits and social services is increasingly uncertain, programs like ours — offering something as seemingly "non-essential" as yoga and mindfulness — are often the first to be cut, even as research continues to show real impact: studies of trauma-informed yoga in correctional settings have linked participation to reduced psychological distress and lower rates of recidivism.

Ten years in, we're still standing on the same foundation we started with: teachers who show up, again and again, for people the rest of the world often overlooks. YFAM now trains and supports a network of more than 50 trauma-informed teachers, many of whom found their way to us with no prior connection to this work, just a willingness to show up. We offer free monthly trainings to keep every teacher resourced and supported, because the people delivering this care deserve care too.

Whether or not you can attend our 2nd annual Yoga For All Day in Downtown Santa Cruz, please support the Yoga For All Movement by donating what you can.

Yoga For All Day is free, and it always will be; it’s our joy to serve the community in this way. But putting it on doesn't come without cost, and the celebration is just one part of a bigger picture: a decade of showing up for people the wellness industry has historically left behind.

Total attendances is our North Star metric, the single number we track and build every strategy around, because every attendance represents someone who chose, with their own agency, to show up. Our goal for 2026 is 10,000 attendances. In 2025, we reached 6,709 — a 53% increase from the year before.

This year, your gift funds four initiatives to help us reach out $25,000 goal:

Produce Yoga For All Day ($10,000)
Staging, sound, permits, insurance, marketing — everything it takes to bring this celebration to Pacific Avenue, free and open to everyone who shows up.
Sustainable Teacher Fund ($6,500)
A $5/class raise across our 25 weekly classes, for the 50+ trauma-informed teachers who make every class possible — many of whom taught for free for years before YFAM could pay them at all.
Youth Pathways Program ($6,000)
Building the next chapter of our Pathways vision for system-impacted youth: curriculum development, internship opportunities, and teacher training pathways that give young people touched by incarceration, foster care, or the justice system a genuine way to grow with YFAM — as students, interns, and eventually, teachers themselves.
Seed the Next Program ($2,500)
Not every opportunity can be planned a year in advance. In recent years, we've had to decline some partnership opportunities to protect a core value: our commitment to fairly compensating our teachers. That value hasn't changed — but as our capacity grows, we're able to say yes more often, the way we did in our earliest, most grassroots years. This fund gives us room to do that with integrity: saying yes to what's next, without ever asking our teachers to go unpaid to make it happen.

Total attendances is our North Star metric, the single number we track and build every strategy around, because every attendance represents someone who chose, with their own agency, to show up. Our goal for 2026 is 10,000 attendances. In 2025, we reached 6,709 — a 53% increase from the year before.

Here's what your donation could fund:

YOGA FOR ALL SUPPORTER — $35
Funds one of our weekly community classes — open to the public, no one turned away for lack of funds — at our teachers' updated rate. No gap between what a class costs and what a teacher is paid.
EQUITY FOR ALL SUPPORTER — $150
Funds one of the monthly trainings that keeps our growing network of 50+ trauma-informed teachers resourced and equipped. Includes shout-out at Yoga For All Day and in YFAM's gratitude announcement!
ACCESS FOR ALL SUPPORTER — $300
Funds a half-day mindfulness workshop for staff and caregivers working with the vulnerable populations we serve. Includes shout-out at Yoga For All Day and in YFAM's gratitude announcement!
JUSTICE FOR ALL SUPPORTER — $500
Funds three months of weekly classes for a community we're saying yes to — often before the funding to support it exists. Includes shout-out at Yoga For All Day and in YFAM's gratitude announcement, plus a YFAM hat!

Your donation is tax deductible and goes directly to making these empowering, healing classes available to the most marginalized and vulnerable in our community.

Yoga For All Movement's 10th Birthday Fundraiser!

Celebrating a decade of making yoga and mindfulness accessible for ALL

Team Members