Jacksonville-area Yoga 4 Change plans for future
When Kathryn Thomas founded Yoga 4 Change in 2014, her plan was to share her passion for yoga by having six to 10 classes a week in the Jacksonville area.
The goal was simple: to use the practice and teachings of yoga that helped her recover from a career-ending injury in the Navy to promote healthy living and self-confidence.
Seven years later, as she and her family prepare to move from their Fleming Island home to Oregon, the nonprofit has expanded statewide with in-person and virtual classes. Its programs have served about 35,000 people, including youth, veterans, those who are living with mental health conditions or recovering from substance abuse and others in correctional facilities.
“Yoga 4 Change has the ability to shift the way people start to think about their body, and once they begin to shift their mindset, they can shift their behavior,” Thomas said. “… They begin to believe they are powerful enough to change their own outcomes.”
The nonprofit that began with Thomas handling everything on her own now has eight full-time employees, one part-time employee and 50 or so contractors including yoga teachers, research assistants and evaluators.
“I never thought Yoga 4 Change would scale across the state … four years after being founded or be able to employ the amount of people we employ currently,” she said.
“Our students deserve a leader who has new ideas”
The move to Oregon stems from Thomas’ other occupation: vice president of business development for ANAMAR Environmental Consulting. She and husband Ross plan to set up ANAMAR’s Pacific Northwest office.
“I am tired and know that in order for Yoga 4 Change to achieve greatness nationwide, our students deserve a leader who has new ideas and vigor when it comes to expansion,” Thomas said. “I am proud of the ability to say I got Yoga 4 Change to the place it is.”
Her successor will be Michelle LeClair, 33, who lives in Palm Coast but beginning in the fall will run the organization from Key West where she and her Navy husband are being transferred. Thomas will interview LeClair live on You Tube on April 29.
LeClair has the program implementation and fundraising experience to take the nonprofit national, Thomas said.
“Michelle impressed us during the interview process with her out-of-the-box ideas, eagerness to take Yoga 4 Change to the next level, clear way of articulating and voicing where she will need more mentorship,” she said.
Recovering from service injury led to life with Yoga
Thomas’ relationship with yoga began in a traumatic time.
She was an active-duty helicopter pilot in the Navy on deployment when she suffered a broken ankle. The injury led to medical retirement. Yoga helped her heal from the physical injury, as well as the trauma of being separated from her job.
“After being told I would never fly helicopters for the United States Navy again because of a surgery that went badly, I began to doubt my life choices and overall purpose,” she said. “My injury had me going from being extremely active to not being able to walk without pain and completely unsure about what I would do the rest of my professional life. Feeling like I was losing control over my professional future and my own body left me anxious and depressed.”
Her physical therapist suggested yoga.
“Having the realization that I could control my own pain level through breathing and movement gave me hope,” she said. “The yoga practice reminded me that no matter what my physical body is limited by, I am still enough. I can still move — even with pain — and I can still achieve my goals.”
She started Yoga 4 Change “to share hope with those who maybe had given up on themselves,” she said.
At the time of the injury, she was stationed in Hawaii and started teaching yoga there. When she and her husband, also a helicopter pilot, were transferred to Jacksonville, she expanded her yoga mission.
Those initial six to 10 classes expanded to Alimacani Elementary School, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s Community Transition Center, the Jacksonville Women’s Center, Pace Center for Girls, Florida Youth Challenge Academy and a Veterans Affairs Supported Housing group. Other classes followed, the latest at an Orlando corrections facility.
Yoga 4 Change a challenge, and a success
In 2015 Yoga 4 Change won $34,000 in cash awards and contributions at the One Spark crowdfunding festival in Jacksonville. At the time, that was the most prize money and funding in the three-year history of the festival.
In 2020 came a $50,000 award as one of six winners of the Florida Blue Foundation’s annual Sapphire Award for excellence and innovation in community health, specifically for the nonprofit’s work on substance abuse.
But there were growing pains along the way.
“I did not fully grasp exactly what it would take to scale an organization to the current size we are today, nor did I ever want to truly run an organization of this size,” Thomas said. “I realized I was over my depth of nonprofit management knowledge.”
In January 2018 she told the board president she would depart in two years. Before she was able to get out the door, the COVID-19 pandemic happened.
“If I had stopped in 2016 because it got hard, or in 2020 when we didn’t know if we would make payroll because of COVID, these students in Orlando might not have the opportunity to be exposed to Yoga 4 Change programming,” she said. “I have worked really hard to get to the place where I could watch Yoga 4 Change thrive without me, and it is a pretty awesome place to be.”
She is most proud of the data-collection component of the program. Research assistants collect pre- and post-class data from students. That data has shown positive results in two specific study groups.
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Yoga 4 Change has provided classes in the three Duval County correctional facilities since 2016, and with a grant from the Chartrand Family Fund the impact was researched from February 2018 through February 2019. Led by Boston University, “the outcomes indicate significant improvements in measures of health, sleep quality, coping skills, forgiveness, self-compassion, emotional regulation, anger management and post-traumatic growth,” according to the nonprofit.
Similar results are being found in an ongoing study of yoga’s impact on people with substance-abuse disorders. Funded by the Florida Blue Foundation, the study runs through October.
“Yoga is a traditional practice, stretching back as far as Christianity,” Thomas said. “I of course felt that the practice could impact anyone because of the impact the practice had on me.” The data collection can “quantify and qualify exactly what the program does for each student. … showing the actual impact our yoga classes have on our students,” she said.
New Yoga 4 Change leader: “Our future is very bright”
Her successor, has a varied resume, including teaching children about the ocean while living in Sanibel Island, running the environmental restoration program at Frost Science Museum in Miami and working for Special Olympics Florida in Gainesville.
“I was ready to take on a new challenge,” LeClair said. “When I first learned about Yoga 4 Change, I was immediately drawn to the mission and the populations that we serve.”
She did not practice yoga daily prior to getting the job but plans to do so. Her first Yoga 4 Change class “was unlike any other yoga class I have ever taken,” she said. “The curriculum we teach is truly what sets us apart from other yoga organizations.”
She has been working with Thomas a few weeks to absorb as much of the founder’s “wealth of knowledge” as possible.
“I am trying be the best sponge I can be,” she said. “Our future is very bright and soon enough everyone will know Yoga 4 Change. I am thrilled and proud to lead such a dynamic group of talented individuals who want to make an impact in the daily lives of others.”
Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109, [email protected]
Yoga 4 Change
To teach, donate or volunteer in the Jacksonville area or get more information, write to Yoga 4 Change-Jacksonville Chapter, P.O. Box 330117, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233; email [email protected] or go to y4c.org.
