As you can probably imagine, over our 25 years in business BL has been approached by many well meaning individuals and businesses looking to raise money for their favorite charity or good cause. And, while we love the idea of supporting those around us, we needed to streamline who and how we were giving back to the surrounding community. Over the course of the past 25 years, we have come up with three very different ways to support our community.
First of all, we created gift bags for silent auctions. The bags have a month unlimited membership and other BL goodies in them. That way, if a member comes to us asking for support for their charity fundraiser, we have donation bags to hand them. It has been very appreciated as a way for these charities to raise money while bringing some of our neighbors in to check out BL. Win Win!!
Secondly, when my daughter, Brie, was in college at Michigan State (Go Green), she attended a class at Yoga State. They offered this Sunday only class at a hugely discounted cost to allow the students to be able to afford a yoga class even though they might not be able to swing a full membership. We thought that was a brilliant idea and started our own community class which we now call Zen 4 $10. Anyone can drop in, enjoy the benefits of yoga and the cost is less than ½ of our normal drop in rate…just $10!! We paused these for the Summer but they will be starting back up Sunday, September 11th at 4 pm. All are welcome…no membership required…just intended as a way for our surrounding community to be able to enjoy the gifts of yoga.
Lastly, and the way I feel we have been able to most significantly support our community, is through Open Door Outreach Center. Our involvement started when the mother of some dear friends of mine, Julie Le Blanc, asked BL to support her annual Julie Run by doing a couple of Zumba songs to warm up the runners. Julie was the founder of the Julie Run which was actually called Julie’s Run to End Hunger. She saw that Open Door Outreach Center was making a difference by helping those in need in our community, but that in order for this great organization to be able to continue to do so, it needed funding. Thus, the creation of the Julie Run 29 years ago. I am proud to say that we were able to rally lots of BL peeps over the years to participate in this great event and help raise lots of money for Open Door. We have also taken Open Door on as Body Language’s local charity and recently raised $2000 for them through our Make a Difference Challenge back in March. In addition to wanting to support this organization because it services our neighbors, I wanted to support it because I absolutely adored the founder of the Julie Run, Julie LeBlanc. She was one of the most loving and welcoming women I’ve ever met and like a second mother to me. She has since passed but the Julie Run is amping back up on September 24th. This will be the 27th Annual Julie’s Run to End Hunger and there will also be a memorial tribute to Julie. This fun filled morning will offer participants two options; a 1 mile or a 5 K walk/run. BL will be one of the sponsors of this event so we would love to see tons of BL peeps wearing their Body Language logos, supporting this great event, our community and this amazing woman who started it all.
Mark your calendars for Saturday, September 24th!
https://runsignup.com/Race/MI/Waterford/OpenDoorsJulieRUNTOENDHUNGER
And thank YOU, for all the ways you help BL support our surrounding community!!
