Making Space for All
We had a chance to spend some time with two of our favorite people in one of our favorite spaces last week - Suzanne sat down with Benjamin and Shelley from Tablespoons Bakery to chat yoga and work in honor of National Disability Employment Awareness month and our first yoga series specifically for adults with developmental disabilities kicking off next week Tablespoons Bakery is a vocational culinary training program through the non-profit Next Move Program where we actually got to meet Benjamin and Shelley for the first time as we provided yoga programming for their interns and alumni!
It is a part of our mission that Humble Haven be an inclusive yoga space and an employment space for people with diverse abilities. Want to support us in this mission? Here are a few ways...
Become a member or class pack holder at Humble Haven - a portion of our profits create scholarship programs and support ongoing programming for non-profits like Next Move Program. You also help us create and maintain jobs by joining us on the mat.
Get involved in the community, ours and others… visit Tablespoons Bakery! They are open Tues-Fri 8-2 and Saturdays 8-12. You can grab a baked good, a coffee, and hang in their cafe or outside on their patio space. 1707 Westover Hills Boulevard, Richmond, VA 23225. Follow them on instagram - @tablespoonsbakery
Spread the word about of Private Yoga Offerings which now include a specialized offering for Children and Adults with Disabilities.
Continue reading for a recent share from our Founder, Suzanne Burns about what happens when we make space for all individuals to join our community.
What Happens When We Make Space for All
“It was February 2019 when I was introduced to Elizabeth Redford, founder of Tablespoons Bakery and co-founder and Executive Director of Next Move Program. My brother-in-law had been in contact with Elizabeth to learn more about Next Move Program, a 501 (c)(3) organization that partners with businesses to create guided internship and externship experiences for young adults with disabilities.
In his email introduction to the two of us, Matt stated “As I have gotten to know Elizabeth and some of her students and as I understand all of the values of yoga, I thought you two may like to at least meet one another and see if there are any opportunities to connect further.” Elizabeth and I made a plan to meet for coffee a couple weeks later and thus began our almost 5 year working relationship and friendship.
When I met Elizabeth I had been teaching yoga to young adults and children with disabilities for about 5 years and I was looking for ways to extend the offering to more people around Richmond. I also happened to be pregnant with my second child, June, and had received June’s diagnosis of Down syndrome at the time Elizabeth and I met. Her work and dedication to creating space for all had taken on a new and personal importance.
Since 2019, Elizabeth has opened up Tablespoons Bakery, a brick and mortar bakery space in Westover Hills that provides internship experiences and employment opportunities for young adults with developmental disabilities. At Humble Haven, we’ve gone from leading offsite yoga programming for Next Move interns, to virtual classes to their alumni throughout the pandemic, to in-studio Next Move alumni classes which started back up in 2022.
What aligns our work is that yoga is for all and so is our right to employment and equitable community space. What is necessary to make this statement true is a willingness to meet ourselves and one another where we are.“
Shared by Suzanne Burns
