February 26, 2009 Issue
Neighborhood Yoga Karma Krew Spreads Service to Community and World
Many organizations in our community are committed to service, such as United Way, Samaritan’s Purse, High Country Women’s Network and OASIS, just to name a few. One community based service organization that may be less well known is Neighborhood Yoga Karma Krew.
Neighborhood Yoga Karma Krew is a local-affiliated chapter of a nonprofit organization based out of Jupiter, Fla. and New York, N.Y., which brings supportive awareness through community based karma yoga events. Neighborhood Karma Krew is based out of Neighborhood Yoga, located at 212 North Water Street in Boone. One aspect of this service is to help practitioners re-think what it means to practice yoga in today’s society.
“Most of us feel our good deeds will burn off bad deeds we have accumulated,” said a Karma Krew representative. “What if we all serviced our community in a way of not expecting the positive flow of karma to come back to us directly, but to land where it may?”
Recent Karma Krew projects include Yogathon 2009, where instructors and other practitioners performed eight hours of non-stop yoga on January 25, raising $2,600 for charity. The money raised will help support future Karma Krew projects.
The Karma Krew also made and sold chocolates for Valentines. The chocolate used was brought to Boone from the 2008 Neighborhood Yoga summer retreat in Costa Rica, with the intention of sending money back to help others in Costa Rica.
“A couple hundred dollars is being sent back to Cari-beans, a local coffee house in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. The American owner uses his profits from such projects to clothe and rehabilitate addicts off the streets and promises them a job in his coffee business once they have cleaned up,” said Karma Krew-member Holly Whitesides.
This past summer, a Butterfly Garden was erected at Leola Street Garden in Boone to help build awareness of the importance of community efforts. In May, Karma Krew will revisit the garden to assist in preparations for the summer growing season.
In April, Karma Krew and other volunteers will aid in the clean up of the nature trails at Elk Knob.
“A ‘donate your old yoga mat drive’ is also in the planning stages,” said Whiteside. “The donated mats will then be available for others to use for bringing yoga into places in the community that may not have yoga mats readily accessible.”
Pennies for Peace, which is affiliated with the Central Asia Institute and their mission to find peace through education, is the newest undertaking by Karma Krew. The Krew hopes to facilitate fundraising efforts to support building schools and educating children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They hope that the fundraising campaign will generate interest in global philanthropy and the mission of Greg Mortenson, who is scheduled to visit Boone in September. For more information on the Karma Krew, email boone@karmakrew.org, click to www.karmakrew.org or call 919-632-1441 or 336-877-7789. For more information Neighborhood Yoga, click to www.neighborhoodyoga.net.
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