The Hanford Parks and Recreation Department is bringing yoga classes to the community every Saturday in June.
The classes, which are categorized for beginners, will be taking place in the Longfield Center, located at 560 S. Douty St.
Kaitlyn Lusk, a parks and recreation coordinator, said she is excited to bring the wellness classes to Hanford and is hopeful they will extend past June.
“We’re starting in June, and we want to see how people will feel about it. We had an instructor reach out Vanessa McBride, she's done it a couple of times for the library and she wanted it to become a program,” said Lusk.
The hour-long classes will start at 9 a.m. Seniors can pay $16 for an entire month and adult prices are $20 per month.
“We wanted to start them off on Saturday mornings to give people a good way to start their weekend morning, let folks get a good stretch in before starting the rest of your weekend,” said Lusk.
Lusk noted that she’s had the idea to bring a yoga class to Hanford for a while, and is excited she’s finally able to provide that resource for residents.
“I’ve been waiting to do it for a while, I had a similar program back in North Carolina where I used to work and I absolutely loved it,” said Lusk.
She's confident that the classes will provide a different experience from other already established fitness classes like Zumba.
“It helps everyone's mental and physical health. I think targeting different forms of exercise that everybody can be a part of, you might not be able to do Zumba physically, but yoga is about working your whole body with different stretches and meditations,” said Lusk.
While there are only classes available for June at this time, Lusk is confident that with community support the parks department will continue to host the yoga sessions.
“We’re looking to do it in July as well, so if people are interested and want to continue it we can do it in July and August,” said Lusk.
Those interested in participating in the classes can register through the parks department website. Participants are required to bring yoga mats and water.
