MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — CBS 58 launched you to Joanna Brooks, proprietor of Embody Yoga, final summer time. She had simply acquired a $25,000 grant from the Jrue and Lauren Vacation Social Impression Fund.
The Milwaukee Bucks star and his gold medalist spouse donated one million {dollars} to Black-owned companies and non-profits. We checked in with Brooks to see how she’s utilizing the cash to broaden her enterprise, and her mission.
“Embody Yoga is right here,” stated Joanna Brooks, stating the yoga studio house on a blueprint of her new wellness heart, merely known as Embody.
The plans are all drawn up for Embody, which has discovered a brand new residence at 4650 N. Port Washington Rd. in Glendale.
“Embody has been a dream of mine that I have been holding near my coronary heart for a couple of years now,” Brooks stated.
That dream is rapidly turning into a actuality. Brooks is already educating yoga courses on the new location, with far more to return.
“We’ll have therapeutic massage, remedy companies, we’ll even have psychological well being,” stated Brooks, who has a background in counseling.
Artist renderings present her imaginative and prescient for what the 2 yoga studios will appear like. One can be jungle-themed and crammed with vegetation.
“Our jungle studio will actually be a jungle– overrun with vegetation. Vegetation from the ceiling, vegetation within the home windows,” she stated with pleasure.
The opposite studio can have a desert theme for decent yoga.
“We’ll be enjoying R&B, hip hop, neo-soul,” Brooks stated of the vibe, which will even included lighting that may change colours.
CBS 58 first met Brooks at her studio house in Milwaukee’s Sherman Phoenix, quickly after she was named a JLH Fund recipient.
“That fund has been so instrumental and so useful for me in so some ways,” she stated.
Brooks has gotten enterprise teaching and has raised greater than $75,000 by way of a crowdfunding effort.
“In 25 hours, we hit our first milestone, $25,000,” she stated, noting how stunned she was by the velocity through which the cash began being donated.
She’s been touched by what number of shoppers and supporters have pitched in to assist her increase the cash in only a month.
“I knew my metropolis would help me, as a result of they all the time have,” she stated. “That is how we have made it six years in enterprise and survived a pandemic. However $75,000 simply appeared like a extremely massive objective.”
Her mission has all the time been to share yoga with individuals of colour. Brooks stated her shoppers are impressed with the brand new house.
“Already, a few of our college students are like, oh, the house seems to be so good and we’re so excited,” Brooks stated. “They’re part of it. You already know, it is for them.”
She’s additionally dedicated to coaching new lecturers.
“There are such a lot of new yoga lecturers who’re serving under-represented communities, identical to Embody Yoga, proper? They usually want a phenomenal house to observe in,” she stated.
Embody will even present new enterprise alternatives for different wellness practitioners, who will be capable of do enterprise there.
“We’ll be additionally supporting wellness practitioners, small enterprise homeowners targeted on wellness, by providing them actually aggressive and actually decreased industrial leasing charges,” Brooks defined.
Her ardour for yoga began when she was a child. She’d get up and observe with Priscilla Patrick on PBS. Years of onerous work have led to this 5,000-square foot house.
“So partitions will go up, flooring will go down,” she stated, stating the place development can be beginning this month.
She hopes to have Embody open early subsequent 12 months.
“What it is completed for me is left me in awe of how life works and the way it guides us down a path,” she stated.
To seek out out extra about Embody, go to https://www.embodyyogamke.com/.
And to donate to the crowdfunding effort, go to https://www.fundblackfounders.com/embodyyogamke.
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