CHICAGO (WLS) --

Stretching and strengthening, a weekly challenge for these yoga students who attend the class every Wednesday.

It's through a program called Yoga-Care taught at a facility in Englewood.

Greg van Hyfte is one of the founders of Yoga-Care who saw a need to make the physical and emotional benefits of yoga more accessible to an underserved community.

"We know there's a 20-year life discrepancy between lower-income communities and higher income communities here in Chicago," he said. "We also know that yoga can help with 75 different health conditions that have been researched."

Chronic back pain brought Dorla Smith to yoga. She's been practicing on and off for a year and has noticed a difference.

"I am so much more flexible that some of the poses I could not even reach because of the stiffness in my back and I am just reaching them today, it's really good," she said.

Smith also says that by the class being in Englewood, she doesn't have to travel outside of her community to take yoga.

That convenience is what brought Michael Dickens to the class.

He says yoga has both a healing and calming effect on him and encourages more people to try it.

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Studio brings yoga to Englewood