Sponsored by the Bohemian Foundation, Om Ananda Yoga will be hosting World Peace Day on April 16, a fundraiser in which the proceeds will go towards maintaining Om Ananda Yoga’s sliding scale priced yoga and meditation classes.
“This is our first fundraiser,” said Whitney Barry, Om Ananda yoga instructor. “We are a non-profit yoga studio, and we really believe that yoga should be affordable to everyone,” said Barry.
Om Ananda Yoga currently uses a sliding scale as a means for charging student for classes based on their available recourses.
“We give five different options for people to choose from,” said Barry. “You can pay nine, 11, 13, 15 or 17 dollars depending on your recourses. If you are a college student who doesn’t have a lot of money, you can choose to pay nine dollars. If you make a good amount of money, you might choose to pay 15 or 17. We don’t ask for proof or anything. We just trust that people will be honest.”
Barry said World Peace Day is meant to ensure that the studio can keep the sliding scale.
“Costs continue to go up,” said Barry. “We still need to pay our teachers. We still have a lot of overhead. And so we want to keep our prices low, without having to raise prices up and up. So we are raising money so that we can sustain the reduced class rates.”
Barry said World Peace Day will spread the message of inner-peace.
“We really want to focus on instilling peace in the individual because that’s how you can bring peace into the world,” said Barry. “It starts on an individual level.”
From yoga with live music to guided meditation, World Peace Day will offer a wide variety of activities for those interested in practicing yoga and meditation, as well as for those who just enjoy learning about it.
“We are going to have yoga with live music,” said Barry. “We’ll have a keynote speaker who has been practicing for 35 years. He is going to talk about peace and how to bring that into our lives and his wife is going to do a guided meditation. We are going to have a silent auction and really healthy nourishing food for everyone. We’ll also have interactive peace activities.”
Barry said World Peace Day is not only a fundraiser, but also an opportunity to bring the community together over a shared interest in peace.
“We want the community to know that we are here and who we are,” said Barry. “We hope that new people will come and that they will feel like that have a place in the community here. We just want to share our message with everyone. We are really into that kind of peaceful holistic lifestyle.”
World Peace Day will be from 2 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. on April 16 at the Om Ananda Yoga Studio, located at 115 N. College Ave. Tickets are available at omanandayoga.com.
Collegian Reporter Randi Mattox can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @randimattox.
