Juana Corona’s favorite part of yoga class is the warrior pose: legs grounded, body pushed forward in a lunge, arms outstretched, palms open. “When I do that pose, it feels strong — like I’m a powerful woman,” she says.

Two months ago, Corona knew nothing about yoga — other than its reputation for being relaxing. That was enough to get her to sign up for Puente’s first-ever yoga class, which is for local mothers.

She loved it right away.

“It was hard some days to do some kinds of stretches, because I never did them before. But it feels good. I put my mind like in a different place. A place with a waterfall. And it relaxes me,” she says with a smile.

On Thursday mornings this spring, a group of Latina mothers tried their first downward facing dogs, bridges, trees, and plank poses in Puente’s childcare space. But this was no generic yoga class: it was part of the Madres project, a program supported by the Bella Vista Foundation to fight maternal depression by bringing women together in community rituals that foster a sense of connection.

Suzanne Hughes, a marriage and family therapist who has led several mental health workshops through Puente, is a licensed yoga instructor. She taught the class in Spanish and infused it with lessons around mindfulness and coping with stress — in words her students could recognize.

“It’s so important to have time to really be quiet and listen to what’s going on inside them, so they can explore what the landscape is like inside,” says Hughes. “They have so many pressures.”

Women in the yoga class hold warrior poses.

Corona is a single mother with three children. So, feeling powerful and relaxed are two things she rarely has access to. When she talks about her challenges, she could easily be describing the feelings of other women in the yoga class, each of whom have their own daily struggles.

“I always have a lot of stress,” explains Corona. “I have little kids and I take care of other people’s kids too during the day. When I come to yoga, it’s only me and my mind and there’s nobody around, no screaming, no fighting.”

To Hughes, yoga integrates psychology and mindfulness in a unique way. As an instructor, she can offer concepts like how to practice being grounded and fight self-criticism through yoga poses that integrate those messages in a physical, tangible way. “You can really make some progress that way, without being too personal.”

In yoga, many beginners struggle with balance poses. So when Hughes guided students into a tree pose — which involves balancing on one leg while bringing the palms together in front of the heart — she invited them to find their sense of balance by bringing their attention to a focal point in front of them. Then she turned the pose into a lesson about persistence and inner fortitude.

The women in tree pose.

“We talked about the concept of having a focal point so you don’t get pushed right or left. For some people, that might be focusing on God or on family. And keeping your priorities really clear. That’s what we do in yoga, but we should also do that in life,” says Hughes.

When students fall over in a yoga pose, that’s a lesson too: that even though things can be hard and you sometimes fall down, you can get back up and try again.

Hughes created take-home guides for students after each class to encourage further reflection on a particular theme. The handouts offer practical skills, such as special breathing techniques to reduce stress.

Hughes gave students a little massage as they relaxed on the ground at the end of the class. (“Oh my god, I loved that!” says Corona). Then Puente served them a healthy breakfast.

The yoga class grew out of conversations between Hughes, Clinical Director Joann Watkins, and Rita Mancera, Executive Director of Puente. It’s part of the Madres project, a longtime Puente program with funding from the Bella Vista Foundation. It engages local mothers in culturally-relevant art projects to combat isolation and depression, such as making art for the community’s annual Dia de los Muertos celebration.

On the physical side, Puente’s Zumba program is already extremely popular in Pescadero, and some locals founded a Pescadero women’s walking group last year, which meets every morning, rain or shine. (Last summer, they ran their first 5K).

So the yoga class felt like a natural transition. Hughes also teaches yoga to students at Pescadero Middle and High School.

Corona was right about the benefits of yoga. She’s just sad the class has ended and there’s no other morning yoga class in Spanish anywhere near Pescadero. The women in her class have already asked Hughes to teach it again as soon as possible. In the meantime, Corona wants to hold on to the sense of equilibrium Hughes nurtured.

“Hopefully I can do it at home. I’m going to try,” she says.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

The Bella Vista Foundation, for ongoing and generous support of Puente.

San Francisco yoga instructor Mark Morford, who facilitated the donations of mats, blocks and cushions—opening doors for other yoga-supply donations to Puente.

Yoga Tree Stanyan in San Francisco, for a generous donation of yoga mats, Yoga Tree Potrero Hill in San Francisco for a generous donation of cushions and blocks.

Thanks to all of you, our yoga program is a reality!

Want to help support Puente’s yoga program, Zumba, 5k Walk/Run, and other health programs?

You can! Please donate here today.

Día de los Niños, Children’s Day, brought lots of joy to Pescadero Elementary on April 29 games and laughter, music and happy chatter. Families, volunteers and most importantly children were busy exploring the many engaging activities that were provided for them It was hard not to be pulled into the world of wonder and action. Inside the Multipurpose Room were about a dozen stations for children to explore and learn. Outside, kids took turns pedaling a blender bike that turns fruit into healthy smoothies, participate in an obstacle course, and listen to story time.

On the obstacle course

“The children know it’s a special day. They go around saying, “It’s our day! Today is our day!” laughs Norma Zavala, who helped cook the hamburgers and hotdogs that were donated by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, as well as playing with the littlest children in the special toddler area.

The kids weren’t the only one enjoying themselves. Día de los Niños is a national holiday in Mexico (and celebrated in other countries around the world), and it’s a day that holds a lot of special memories for parents. It was Zavala’s favorite day growing up. The entire nation celebrates its children with costumes and parades. In school, it’s the day teachers show off for their students. Children get treats and play all day.

“On Día de los Niños, my mom would wake us up with a hug and she would cook us something she wouldn’t cook often. I would always race to school. It was a party. The teachers would play games with us and they would give us ice cream,” recalls Zavala. Best of all, children got a goody bag full of little gifts.

“When I think about it today, I still feel so good inside,” she adds. “That’s why I think it’s important to continue the tradition here in the South Coast — so that these kids can have those kinds of memories too.”

Instilling cultural pride was a major reason Puente held its first Día de los Niños celebration in 2009. In Pescadero, the celebration represents the culmination of the elementary school year and is among the most popular and eagerly-awaited of all annual events in the community. It’s an after-school party for roughly 125 Pescadero-area children, from preschool through 5th grade. Families bring potluck dishes to feed the whole community. This year over 230 people attended. The crowd included over 20 children from Redwood City who performed Baile Folklorico outside.

“It sends a message to children — you matter,” says Arlae Alston, Family Engagement Project Manager for Puente and the main organizer of the event. But there’s a message for parents too. “We’re going to help you continue to hold onto your own culture. You can join a new culture [in a new place] but you don’t have to let go of where you’re from.”

Parents always enjoy comparing notes on how they used to celebrate Día de los Niños in their own towns. In so doing, they share the history of their families and of themselves as children. According to Alston, overhearing those happy stories increases their children’s positive self-image. That dose of self-confidence then helps them relax and learn.

And learning is the goal at Día de los Niños. The entire event is designed to contribute to early literacy, science and numeracy, with activities planned around storytime and science projects. Last year, children put on a puppet show and made a big mosaic mural that hangs outside the Puente offices.

This year they got to make tortillas, from mixing the flour to pressing the dough to eagerly await as they were slowly cooking on the pan.

Alston says that “the smell of fresh tortillas and salsa reminds us of our times in Mexico. We believe that children’s way of learning is natural and this was reflective also through their imaginative recycle 3-D art pieces.” Those art pieces, by the way, will be on display at the San Mateo County Intentional Teacher Fair on Saturday, May 7.

There was also a performance by those twenty children from Redwood City and loteria (a game similar to BINGO) for prizes.

Anglo parents bring their kids, too. “They didn’t grow up with this, and it’s nice to see them asking questions and enjoying this new tradition with their children,” says Zavala, a local home visitor for Head Start and child care provider with Puente.

Two children create art together this year at Dia.

And just as in Zavala’s childhood, Pescadero children go home with goody bags. But instead of candy, the goody bags are full of fun school supplies like crayons and notebooks, sunscreen and toothbrushes — and at least one book provided by the seventh and eighth graders at St. Gregory Catholic School in San Mateo.

One thing that makes Puente’s version of Día de los Niños so unique is the volume of in-kind donations from individuals, congregations and organizations, says Abby Mohaupt, Faith Community Liaison for Puente. “It’s a bunch of churches who work together to contribute to this event, and I love that.” Stone Church of Willow Glen donated the crayons, and Grace Lutheran Church of Palo Alto provided writing tools like pens and pencils, as well as a hotwheel car for every child. There was also a stuffed animal tucked into each bag. The bags were packed by a Girl Scout troop in Hillsborough. “So many hands and hearts go into making Día de los Niños a joyful celebration,” Mohaupt says.

Volunteers with the Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church of San Mateo returned to help with bookmark making, and the Half Moon Bay Library came too with their Imagination Playground, button making and

A big change this year was local parents volunteering to staff the stations, instead of parents from communities “over the hill” who typically drive in to help. Most of the volunteers are participants in Puente’s Family Engagement Impact Initiative, including programs like Abriendo Puertas and training workshops for local childcare providers by a partner nonprofit.
Those programs are an example of how Puente celebrates children every day, not just on Children’s Day. From Homework Club to Puente’s newly-reorganized childcare center, the message is clear: this is a place to grow, to be nurtured, to learn.

Those parents were assisted by students from Cañada College and Stanford University, most of whom were bilingual. Those students were clear models to the children that college is an attainable thing.

Norma Zavala supervises toddler playtime at the childcare center twice a week while parents attend classes at Puente. She’s a single mom. When her daughters were young enough to need childcare, there was no place like Puente to bring her kids and nothing to enrich their education. There was no Día de los Niños or Homework Club.

“I had to do the parenting job alone. It’s important to me that the parents know that while they are here pursuing their education, they’re leaving their children in safe hands,” she says.

But her favorite thing is to watch children and parents enjoying books together at Día de los Niños.

“My kids didn’t have that. We came from Mexico and we didn’t have books there or here,” she says.

And Día de los Niños is a powerful reminder that each child matters and that each parent is not alone. It is true that “it takes a village to raise a child” and on April 29 the children and parents of Pescadero were shown that they have an incredible village.

Help us match $65,000 for Puente!

All gift’s to Puente’s 24-Hour fundraiser will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

You can give in advance or on May 3.

Visit svgives.mypuente.org or call 650-879-1691 to give.

Thank you!