Yoga is often seen as self-care. Here, it’s about community care.

Every Thursday for the past two years, a group of girls ages 8-15 walk around Main Street in North Wilkesboro, NC, greeting store owners and neighbors they meet along the way. They’ve just left their yoga class. 

As part of their yoga group, they’ve been intentional in starting conversations and doing acts of service, like writing Thanksgiving and Valentine’s cards or helping clean up litter in the streets, to build trust with neighbors. 

“The group is all about empowering a new generation of weavers,” says Susan Cogdill. She started the Wilkes Yoga Sisterhood in September 2023, “to provide the girls with a space where they can develop a community and connection, and build confidence while doing yoga.”

The girls take the lead. They came up with “shared agreements” to be kind, respectful, and supportive to each other and to their neighbors. They decide how they help their community, starting initiatives like collecting animal food to give to the Humane Society or finding ways to bring joy to elders by making cards or dreamcatchers. When they walk around town, they determine who they visit and who they build relationships with – even choosing unexpected spaces, like the local tattoo parlor. 

The agreements give the kids a framework to raise each other up. Cogdill recounts how one of the girls, Maggie, was crying when she first came to the class with her sister. “She was so nervous and upset to be there, but she finished the session. She came a second time and, by the end, she was already finding her voice. Now, she is a leader in our group.” 

Like Maggie, Cogdill was unsure about yoga at first. She thought she was too old for it. Then she tried it six years ago during a work retreat and fell in love. She saw its potential to help others. “At the time, I was director of the Wilkes County Partnership for Children, and envisioned how much good yoga could do for the children I worked with,” she says. 

She became a certified trainer of Yoga Calm – a practice that helps children self-regulate and develop social-emotional skills – so she could share the practice with neighbors. “A lot of children in town face difficulties. Many are being raised by only one parent or grandparents, and they need a sense of connection that they might not always find at home or at school. Yoga gives them an opportunity to learn who they are, develop mindfulness techniques, and find a sisterhood that allows them to be comfortable with each other.”

Cogdill wanted to make her Yoga Sisterhood as welcoming as possible, so she made it free. That is when she saw a poster announcing the first Wilkes County Weaver Awards. “When I got the Weaver Award, I got enough money to buy equipment, snacks, and little things needed to get the program started,” she says. 

She also gained a network of fellow weavers, which she tapped to help the girls in her class fulfill one of their dreams. “They kept talking about how much they all love horses. And lo and behold, one of the folks in the community happens to own a horse sanctuary, which we have visited.” 

For Cogdill, it is all about listening to her group and helping guide the girls to flourish as weavers. “At that age, all day long they are told what to do. This is about them finding their own voice. And nothing could make me prouder than seeing that they choose to use their voice to support each other.”