• New Traditions Elementary School (link)
• Women's Reentry Center of San Francisco - Wednesday nights beginning March 24! (link)
• San Quentin State Prison
• Tuesday Nights at County Jail - San Francisco Sheriff's Department (link)
• Yoga in the Park for Kids & Adults (link)
• Community Yoga at Sports Basement (link)
• "The Space In Between" Lunchtime Yoga Class
• Donation-based Hatha Yoga Sunday Morning Class at the Yoga Society of San Francisco (link)
• Program development at Glide Church in progress (link)

Introducing Seva Starters:

The Purusha Seva Project provides funding for the implementation of programs proposed by members of the community. After reviewing a recent group of applications, the Board of Directors has chosen the following Seva Starters:

Elizabeth Samet was introduced to formal yogic practices when she was 14. During the same time she fell in love with Osho’s Dynamic meditation. This system consists of emotional release through active movement, stillness, and celebration through dance. This early exposure to conscious movement paved the way for experiential education of the Chakras which she began at age 18 with Sonya Sophia Illig in Austin TX. Here she co-facilitating Godd-ess Awakening Workshops leading students to experience and heal through their Chakras. She has studied with Anodea Judith, and Iyengar teachers: Manouso Manos, and Evlaleah Howard. She’s taught yoga asanas, meditation, mindful movement, raw and macrobiotic cooking to diverse populations including athletes and people recovering from psychiatric instability. She passionately guides students to trust themselves and their bodies by embracing and celebrating whatever they discover inside themselves.

Tara Samiy has been a student of yoga for over 10 years. Her formal training began in Los Angeles with two Yoga Alliance registered teacher training programs. She completed the Yoga Works 200 hour teacher training, which synthesizes classical Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Viniyoga styles. In addition Tara studied with Linda Lack, PhD, developer of The Thinking Body-The Feeling Mind™SM, a developmental movement technique based on classic Hatha Yoga, movement therapy and kinesiology principles. Moreover, Tara has completed numerous other workshops with a focused interest in the psychology and therapeutic applications of yoga.
In 2006, Tara began doctoral studies in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where she has also explored her interest in the therapeutic potential of movement practices, body-oriented therapies and other non-verbal expressive therapies as sources of personal transformation. Since beginning her graduate studies, Tara has continued her training in yoga through personal practice and local teachers. She has been particularly inspired by her studies with Joy Ravelli and Jnani Chapman. Tara has taught as guest teacher for the Purusha Yoga Therapy Training, and currently teaches yoga privately, and assists and teaches yoga therapy at St. Mary’s Hospital. Tara particularly enjoys teaching yoga (asana, pranayama, and restorative) to those who are new to yoga, seeking modified practices, or seeking to build a home practice. Click here to view Tara's full CV.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Agustina Villar has been exposed to yoga almost her entire life through her mother Virginia, a yoga teacher herself. It was not until living in San Francisco, however, that she formalized her yoga education and went through the 200-hr Yoga Certification with Purusha Yoga School. Agustina is currently taking her 500-hr level of training.
Purusha is the Sanskrit term for "true self," so the style of yoga accommodates to each person as an individual and seeks to teach each person in a way that suits them best. This style resonates with Agustina's heart-calling for self-exploration and is transfered into her teaching as she believes that the practice of yoga can benefit anyone regardless of their ability, age, or flexibility.

We offer our deepest congratulations. We are grateful for your hard work and dedication
to our mission of providing wellness classes to at-risk populations.
Please contact Joy to apply for funds to start your own Seva program!

Community Health Day to Benefit the Purusha Seva Project:

The Purusha Seva Project will hold a Community Health Day hosted by Sports Basement in the Presidio on April 17, 2010 from 11am - 4pm. The money we raise will fund our wellness programs for underserved populations in the Bay Area. Mark your calendars and plan to volunteer during the event! To print information and schedule for the day, please click here.

Classes & Events:
11am - Purusha Soul Flow Yoga
12pm - Kids' Yoga
1pm - Partner Yoga
2pm - All levels Hatha Yoga
3pm - Kirtan Chanting Celebration

Become a sponsor! To download our sponsorship package application, click here.

For more information, contact Joy Ravelli, Founder & Executive Director, at joy@purushayoga.org.

Warrior III:

• Tabletop exhibit space in the health fair area
• Choice in sponsoring a specific class given during the day with a 3-5 minute slot to speak to participants before the class
• Your company name/logo on all print advertisements
• Logo/link on Purusha Yoga website and Facebook event page
• Logo/link on all promotional emails sent out on behalf of Purusha
• Logo/Name on event giveaway (with commitment by March 20th)
• Opportunity to speak on behalf of your organization before the finale event
• Name announced throughout the day by event holders

Warrior III sponsors will contribute to the raffle and cross-promote.

Cost: $750

Warrior II:

• Tabletop exhibit space in the health fair area
• Your company name/logo on all print advertisements
• Logo/link on Purusha Yoga website and Facebook event page
• Logo/link on all promotional emails sent out on behalf of Purusha
• Logo/Name on event giveaway (with commitment by March 20th)
• Name announced throughout the day by event holders

Warrior II sponsors will contribute to the raffle and cross-promote.

Cost: $500

Warrior I:

• Tabletop exhibit space in the Health Fair area
• Your company name/logo on all print advertisements,
• Logo/link on Purusha Yoga website and Facebook event page
• Logo/link on all promotional emails sent out on behalf of Purusha

Warrior I sponsors will contribute to the raffle and cross-promote.

Cost: $250

Purusha Partner Discount:

Cost: $200

Healers' Network: Opportunity for Seva

Join our Network of Healers! If you work in one of the healing arts, e.g. Reiki, massage therapy, etc., we would be thrilled for your volunteer participation in our Community Health Fair. Our Network of Healers will be situated in different areas of the store ready to offer their unique services. This is a free opportunity to network and build your client base.

For more information, contact Helaine at grasshopper@ecoyogahealing.com.

Volunteer Opportunities:

April 17th Community Health Day at Sports Basement:

• Volunteer your strong body to help us set up chairs and tables, to reaarange and organize the areas of the store for the day, and to dismantle and pack up at the end of the event.
• Volunteer your energy and mind to help us orchestrating and delegating the myriad tasks involved in making the event run smoothly.
• Volunteer your cheerfulness and friendliness as a greeter.
• Volunteer your talent for one of the healing arts during our April 17th Health Fair at Sports Basement in the Presidio. Email Helaine (grasshopper@ecoyogahealing.com) for details.

Sunday Streets (sundaystreetssf.com) :

"The Purusha Yoga School gives free instruction at San Francisco's first Sunday Streets event of the year, which shut down the Embarcadero from the AT&T Park to Pier 45." --SFGate.com, San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday Streets offers free and fun physical activity space to all San Franciscans and provides open space in neighborhoods that lack such space currently. Local businesses will also benefit from increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic along commercial corridors. The events provide a model of how cities can provide healthy, environmental friendly outdoor activities for their residents.

Bay Area residents of all ages, families, local businesses, and visitors are all invited to join the fun. Come one come all. Absolutely free. No sign-ups required. Participants will enjoy this unique opportunity to safely enjoy the streets and explore new neighborhoods. Sunday Streets is working with an array of San Francisco organizations, including the Purusha Seva Project, to coordinate activities along the route, so there is sure to be something for everyone! Among the group events to be offered along the route are tai chi, yoga, and aerobics.

Please contact Joy for details on volunteering.

Volunteers Positions Needed:

• A leader/instructor for each of two separate 45-minute activities at 11:00am and 1:00pm.
• Individuals to staff our Purusha Seva Project table, share information, and network on behalf of our organization for shifts during the hours of 10:00am - 3:00pm.

Volunteering Dates:

• April 11: Along the Great Highway, coinciding with World Health Day's “1,000 Cities, 1,000 Lives” international event, as one of thousands of cities hosting simultaneous car-free events worldwide.
• May 23: Bayview, in conjunction with the 3rd Street Corridor Project and Bayview Merchant’s Association’s “3rd Street Festival.”
• June 20: Mission, along Valencia and 24th Streets.
• July 11: Mission.
• August 22: Great Highway/Golden Gate Park.
• October 24: NEW Civic Center/Tenderloin, exact location TBD.
• Schedule pending for Inner Sunset Farmers Market and Street Fair.

Executive Director and Founder:

Joy Ravelli
Joy is a lifelong yogi who has been known to be "in motion" most of her life. She enjoys sharing the passion for play that she believes is inherent in all us by allowing her students and clients the opportunity to discover their deepest desires for health and well-being.

Joy is a certified personal trainer (ACE, AFAA), Pilates teacher (Physical Mind Institute), yoga teacher, (Frogpond Yoga), nutrition specialist (Tufts University), and health educator. Joy has designed and implemented programs for high school curricula, health maintenance organizations, and corporations throughout Massachusetts and California.

Board of Directors:

Adnan Iftekar, Founder
Adnan has been learning, teaching, dancing, and playing with yoga, acrobatics, modern dance, improvisatio,n and sometimes with computers for over 15 years. He has taught and performed at a variety of venues from a blackbox theater in Bennington, VT, to the streets of France and Germany to APE in Northampton, MA, to Deerfield Academy in Historic Deerfield, MA.

Adnan is a Yoga Alliance certified instructor and has taught at yoga studios in Massachusetts, New York, California, as well as Paris, France, and Karachi, Pakistan.

Adnan currently serves as the Director of Technology at the Presidio Hill School, a progressive, independent school whose mission is to encourage students to question, evaluate, and think creatively and independently.

Adnan loves being upside-down.

Mark Brueckman
Mark is the owner of mlb project consulting, llc. Mark has over twenty years of project management, financial management, and process improvement experience. Mark has created and implemented processes, governance, quality management, training, and cultural change at companies such as Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Gap, and Kaiser Permanente. Prior to founding mlb project consulting, llc, Mark was a project manager and development manager at Charles Schwab and, prior to that, the Controller and Treasurer of Summit Savings Bank. His interests are dancing, yoga, biking, motorcycling, reading, public TV/radio, Landmark Education, career coaching, and cheesy monster movies.

Helaine Sheias, Ph.D., Chair
Dr. Helaine Sheias, is an avid eco-feminist, eco-spiritual counselor and Yoga practitioner. She is a pious believer in the “My body is my Temple” philosophy. A certified international group facilitator and a registered yoga teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance, she is now pursuing her RYT-500 certificate. She has created The Tree of LIFE YogaHealing Seminars, which integrate the Eight Limbs of Yoga Philosophy with Pranayama & Meditation, Kabbalah teachings, and Chakra energy work, all combined as an interwoven tapestry of spiritual, ecological, and physical qualities of traditional Yoga teachings. Eco-YogaHealing: is an eco-spiritual approach to Yoga which focuses on bringing balance, harmony, and flow – internally and externally to ourselves and our environment. Eco-YogaHealing helps establish a strong union of mind-body-spirit with the four elements of Mother Earth - fire, earth, air and water, the four directions, and the four seasons. Focusing on each element, direction, and season, Eco-YogaHealing integrates various asanas into our Yoga practice, which help heal the undernourished areas in our bodies that have been affected most by environmental toxins, work-related stress, and anxiety.
Weaving the strands between compassionate listening, non-violent social action, and healing storytelling, Helaine believes that we can bring about a turn in the cultural and ethnic awareness of the inhabitants of the world. This process invites us to cultivate a sense of sacred connectedness to Mother Earth by consistently facilitating wholeness, staying in relation and in participation to the land and the peoples where we reside. This involves the reconnection of individuals to the psychological and spiritual aspects of their own wholeness, through the Eight-Limb Philosophy of Yoga. Calling for a sense of ownership of the shadows of our pasts, this process requests of us to reveal, acknowledge, repent, and finally shed those aspects of ourselves, which can be found to be linked to the oppression and suffering of others. Helaine yearns to sow the seeds of Eco-YogaHealing throughout the continents and to gradually transform them into kernels of hope and peace – becoming genuine exemplars of sacred transformation and growth.
Helaine strongly believes that we are all spiritual beings in a physical body. Our body is the temple of our soul; our soul is a reflection of the Divine. We yearn to achieve freedom from pain and suffering, and craving, as we passionately desire to experience permanent happiness and joy. Genuine truth and happiness are within us and are not found in the external materialistic world. Truth, love, and happiness are inside our souls.

Thu Tran, Secretary
Thu has been working in the financial industry for over 10 years, managing technology, information security, and compliance projects. She has created and implemented programs to improve processes, manage risks, and measure control effectiveness.
Thu received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California - Santa Cruz, Master of Science from San Jose State University, and Master of Business Administration from California Lutheran University. She enjoys learning and is seizing the opportunity to make a difference in the community through the Purusha Seva Project.
In addition to yoga, her interests include Pilates, photography, travel, hiking, and learning how to follow on the dance floor. Little pleasures in life: ice cream, rain, and being the cool auntie.

Holly Virginia Clark
Holly has over 5 years’ professional experience providing executive support and administrative assistance in a variety of settings, including the 92nd Street Y’s May Center for Health and Fitness and Village Gyrotonic. Additionally, she has taught creative writing and English language arts to under-served and at-risk youth in the New York City Public School system. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in poetry, Holly is also the primary instructor and manager of the FreeBird Writing Workshop San Francisco. Holly is delighted to join the team of the Purusha Seva Project and contribute her diverse skill set to the cause of spreading wellness education and the yogic lifestyle.

Volunteers, Consultants, and Former Board Members:

Kimberly de Caires
Kimberly de Caires is a San Francisco native, visual artist, musician, and educator. She first began working with children in the summer of 1989. Since then she has taught and created programming for a number of high-quality arts organizations in the Bay Area and around the country, including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Children's Museums of Chicago, Oakland, and Berkeley, the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Julia Morgan Center for the Performing Arts, and others.
She is currently Curricula Director of Ladybug Preschool, an arts-based, Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool in San Francisco. She has a Bachelor's Degree from San Francisco State University and additional course studies in visual art, music, psychology, and early childhood education. She began her yoga practice in 2004 and has been meditating since she was a child. In addition to making art and music, Kimberly enjoys reading, traveling, cooking delicious vegetarian food, hanging out with her animals, cute shoes, good red wine, and dark chocolate with almonds.

Gypsy McFelter
Gypsy has been deepening her yoga practice over the last five years and is exited to share her growing passion for yoga with a greater community through the Purusha Seva Project. A longtime resident of Northern California, Gypsy has been working in the nonprofit sector for more than ten years. She is currently a Development Associate at the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society and previously worked in Special Programs at California College of Art, facilitating community and youth art classes in Oakland and San Francisco. When she's not practicing asanas in the park or pedaling around the Presidio, Gypsy enjoys listening to music, hiking, quilting, and cooking.