OSI-Baltimore is proud to support the work of The Holistic Life Foundation’s after school program, Holistic Me. The program, run by founders Ali and Atman Smith, who are brothers, and their long-term friend Andrés Gonzalez, works with Baltimore City students to introduce the concepts of yoga, mindfulness, meditation, centering and breath work. Combined with extra-curricular and academic components – and dinner – the award-winning afterschool program empowers youth with the skills for peaceful conflict resolution, improved focus and concentration, greater control and awareness of thoughts and emotions, improved self-regulation, anger management and stress reduction.
Holistic Me began at one Baltimore City school. Now in its 15th year, the program serves more than 120 students in 13 city schools, as well as some in independent schools.
“Kids in underserved communities might be stressed because they can’t eat, they don’t have food or they come to school with their clothes dirty and they get joked,” Ali says. “Kids at private school are stressed too. They have achievement anxiety or they’re not connecting with their parents because they’re traveling or working. It just manifests itself differently. But it can be damaging, no matter what, if they don’t learn how to address it.”
Here, students at Robert W. Coleman Elementary/Middle School work together after school to master tree pose.
Bringing the health, wellness and success-generating benefits of mindfulness to Baltimore City students was the brainchild of Atman Smith (L) and Ali Smith (center) – the children of yoga-practicing parents in West Baltimore — and Andrés (Andy) Gonzalez, who met the brothers as undergrad students at the University of Maryland College Park.
“Our Dad would make us meditate before school every morning,” Atman says. “As young adults, we all got into our own personal yoga practice. But then we realized we shouldn’t be the only ones feeling this good. We had to share it.”
True to the core of good yoga practice, all mindfulness sessions start with breathing exercises, and understanding the importance of the breath. “We’re giving them the physical, mental and emotional tools to deal with the stresses of life,” Ali says. “That’s something they can use right now, in class and at home, but also that they can use for the rest of their lives. It gives them a place where they can always have some inner peace. We tell our kids, ‘Outside it can be chaos, but you always have this place you can go to inside; it’s yours and no one can take it away from you.”
In addition to mindfulness, with the help of partners, Holistic Me is able to provide dinner for all of its afterschool participants, as well as enrichment activities such as badminton, basketball, woodworking, art, entrepreneurship, martial arts, dance, steel drums and STEM activities.
Participants also all get a full hour of academic reinforcement, homework help and tutoring. Students say the mindfulness practices are useful to them inside and outside the classroom. “It helps you stay focused,” says first-grader Tamia Anderson, 6 (not pictured). “It helps distract [me] if anybody is talking to me badly. It makes me unmad.”
One of the hallmarks of Holistic Me’s yoga lessons is that students often lead the classes, while one of the founders or an adult volunteer supervises. “The coolest thing about what we do is we empower kids and help them develop leadership skills,” Gonzalez says. “Then they can teach other people.”
The students often mimic their teachers when “instructing.” “Breathe in DEEEEP,” they’ll boom in faux adult voices. “Breathe out slooooowly.”
Jerrell Johnson’s father died when Jerrell was 15. Then his mother went into rehab, and Jerrell started getting into trouble. Ali Smith took Jerrell in to live with him and – as with his own upbringing – introduced the high schooler to daily yoga practice, mindfulness and stress reduction.
“He got me really into yoga. He inspired me for real,” says Jerrell, 19. “I look up to him and Atman like big brothers. Because they was around, it wasn’t like I was lonely.”
Jerrell is now taking classes to learn how to teach yoga so he can be one of Holistic Me’s regular volunteers.
The Smith brothers and Gonzalez, as well as their staff members and volunteers, become trusted adults in their students’ lives – who listen to their problems and cheer them on toward success.
Ali: “We help them step beyond their neighborhoods and realize they don’t have to be afraid to succeed and afraid to just dream on a huge level. Whatever you want to do you can do it. Don’t be afraid of anything; if you need help doing it, let us know. We’ll give you all the resources we can. But if there’s something you want to do, don’t let anybody tell you you can’t do it. Make it happen.”
Atman: “We come into our kids’ lives [and let them know] we’re going to be there forever. Until we’re gone off this Earth, we’re going to be in their lives.”
