As the afternoon sun dappled across the checkerboard floor, hands came together forming a steeple and rose above their heads in unison.

In a small group, the handful of mobility-challenged attendees of the first-ever Wheel In Yoga class in the Community Wholeness Centre (in the former Community Care Access Centre or CCAC building) on Maple Avenue, were quietly following yoga instructor Joanne Lougheed's movements.

We do a modification of the same poses you would do on a mat, Lougheed said as the attendees readied themselves for their first yoga lesson.

It's both mind and body awareness. It's meditation with movement.

It's one of many classes founder Yolanda Gallo has scheduled at the Wholeness Centre. Holistic programming classes include Zumba, meditation and Qi Gong Thai Chi classes, as well as similar children's courses in a smaller format.

Using the former offices and clinical rooms of the CCAC, Gallo is renting out space to practitioners of massage, acupuncture, reflexology, Reiki, and naturopathic medicine. There will also be a therapeutic component in yoga, music and art therapy, Thai Chi, as well as large community gymnasium for rent.

Gallo's vision is to charge a low membership fee of $50 a month for the large volunteer base active in Barrie, while charging practitioners to rent the office space.

We're confident we'll sustain the volunteer centre and programs through the space rentals, Gallo said.

Focusing on natural and holistic wellness, Gallo said having the various practitioners under one roof offering a one-stop-wellness-shop will encourage people who offer their services freely to others to help themselves.

In my opinion, if we don't start taking care of those human resources and help them take care of themselves, we'll lose them, she said.

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Yoga class at Barrie centre the first of its kind in region