Skip to content

Community Service Programs

Community Service Programs at Lotus Center

Yoga in Public Schools

Yoga in Public Schools (“YIPS”) is a community service project of Lotus Center, which began during the 2017/18 school year. Our mission for YIPS is to bring non-religious yoga classes, as part of their Physical Education curriculum, to public schools in Grant County, New Mexico. Thus far, Lotus instructors have taught yoga to students at Bayard Elementary, San Lorenzo Elementary, La Plata Middle, Guadalupe Elementary, Cliff, Silver High, Snell Middle, and Jose Barrios Elementary schools. YIPS is part of Lotus Center’s community service program, and is provided at no cost to the schools or the students.

Nonviolent Communication

In 2022 and 2023 Lotus Center partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Silver City, and the Silver City Food Co-op, respectively, to provide weekend trainings in Nonviolent Communication (“NVC”), as presented in the text of the same title by author Marshall Rosenberg. For these trainings, each of which was attended by 35 people, a Truth or Consequences-based certified NVC instructor was retained. An outgrowth of those trainings is a weekly, ongoing NVC “Practice Group” which is offered at Lotus Center by donation with no one ever being turned away for lack of funds.

Meditation in Public Schools

In response to a December 2022 request from the teachers at Aldo Leopold Middle School, Lotus Center dispatched one of our meditation instructors to lead weekly meditation classes to all five homeroom classes at the middle school.

We are happy to be continuing our service to the Aldo Middle School in the 2023-24 school year, and to offer meditation at Snell Middle and Aldo Leopold High School in the near future.

Meditation in Public Schools is provided at no cost to students or the schools.

Healing, Heart-opening Film Screenings

In 2022 Lotus Center partnered with Silver Sexual Assault Support Services and PFLAG to produce a public screening of “The Wisdom of Trauma,” a film that examines trauma and the common consequences of trauma which include anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse.

In the spring of 2023 Lotus Center, partnering with the High Desert Humane Society to offer a public screening of “My Octopus Teacher,” an academy award-winning film that, among other things, addresses the connection between humans, animals, and the natural world.

The films, which screened at Silver City’s Silco Theater, were open to the public on a donation basis with no one being turned away for lack of funds.

The Daily Dharma

The Daily Dharma is a Lotus Center blog site that offers inspiring, insightful wisdom vignettes every day. Typical contributors include Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joan Halifax, Richard Rohr, and Norman Fischer. To get your dose of the Daily Dharma – and subscribe for free – please visit…