The children came running from their yoga mats through a crowd of families and adults toward the mic-holding instructor waiting at the front of the field to receive their answers to her question:

“When is it a good time to take a deep breath?”

The moment was special to the instructor, Rasheeda Villarreal, and the other six yoga teachers and the LINC program staff that had brought all of these children and their parents and neighbors together.

Here came children, as young as 5, romping across the football field at Central High School at Indiana Avenue and Linwood Boulevard of Kansas City’s East Side, joining a refreshed community under a bright sun in a world full of stress.

“When you feel happy,” came a girl’s first answer, leaning to the mic lowered to her.

“When you’re angry,” said a boy, next in line.

“When you’re sad,” said another girl.

“When you’re feeling so many emotions at once,” said an older girl.

“When you feel frustrated,” said a boy.

In the past year, LINC began bringing yoga instructors into the after-school programs at some of its Caring Communities sites at Missouri schools throughout the Kansas City area, and soon — because of the demand — LINC expanded it to all of its more than 40 sites.

Saturday, May 18, LINC staff and seven of its team of yoga professionals invited the whole blossoming LINC yoga community to come together on the wide open football field at Central High School.

“What’s special about today is we are in the Third District here in Kansas City,” said yoga instructor Debonie Lewis, “and we are bringing the urban core and yoga together. We’re allowing people and their families to come out and a have a morning of relaxation, a morning of fun, a morning of movement and meditation.”

This is just the first of what will be an ongoing plan to gather children and families, for yoga and other sports as well, said LINC Athletic Director Jason Ervin.

And they will all come “with the same goal in mind,” he said. “To bring communities and families together.”

Children and families in the neighborhoods stretching out from the Central High School area often don’t have enough opportunities or access to healthy outlets like yoga, and that is motivating LINC’s team of instructors.

“We’re living in some really difficult times right now,” yoga instructor Danielle Small said. “So mental health is one of those things that’s trending.”

The Saturday gathering was a inspiring expression of “community,” she said. “To see kids as low as pre-K to sixth grade, taking time to breathe and be still in the moment is really something. Every day it blows my mind, it just fills my heart with joy.”

Taking yoga into all of LINC’s programs in the Kansas City Public Schools, Hickman Mills, Grandview, Center and North Kansas City school districts has made an impact, said LINC President and CEO Janet Miles-Bartee.

The number of behavior difficulties with children has notably decreased, she said. Children and their families — and LINC staff too — are feeling the positive well-being of yoga.

“Thank you,” she told the line of yoga instructors Saturday, “for everything you did for our children this year.”

Parent Laquisha Ross came with her elementary school son, Jerry, she said, to be with other families and to stretch and — as Jerry reminded her — “to have fun.”

But she particularly wanted her son to experience yoga, she said.

“I want Jerry to do yoga so that he can learn ways to calm himself, stretch, focus — focus on inner strength.”

Jerry was one of the children who ran up to give his thoughts on good moments to take a deep breath.

“When you feel frustrated,” was his.

When instructors are teaching children, said Lewis, “I feel like we are instilling in them at a younger age tools in their tool belt to help with emotional control — to help with physical confidence and self-confidence internally.”

The mild weather and all of its sunshine was a perfect setup Saturday to celebrate what the yoga program has been achieving the past year, said instructor Brigitte Benyei.

“I hope that the kids can get out of yoga the sense of being free to move and explore their bodies, their breath work, wellness, feeling calm,” Benyei said.

All of that helps get children to the last hope on her list: “feeling happy.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer