Communication Builds Our Community
Communication Builds Our Community
The health and wellbeing of hundreds of area residents may improve thanks to a $10,000 grant intended to help a local business grow and prosper.
American Express and Main Street America announced that Yoga Bliss is one of the 500 small business owners nationwide who have been awarded one of the grants, distributed through the "Backing Small Business" grant program.
A large group of area residents participated in a free wellness class offered by Yoga Bliss Studio. The business was the recipient of a $10,000 "Backing Small Businesses" grant from Main Street America and American Express.
business is owned by Megan Rimer, who has a degree in criminology from USF, but stepped into yoga as a teen, seeking an outlet to relieve the stress she encountered growing up. Her experience, she says, gave her "a passion for a peaceful and healthy lifestyle."
She has operated the Yoga Bliss studio at 205 East Stuart Avenue Wales for three years. Planned improvements that will be funded by the grant include support equipment for senior fitness classes, including padded chairs for chair yoga, and equipment including that supports people in yoga poses to relieve stress on their joints.
Stand-alone ballet bars for BARRE fitness, inversion benches for safety inversions for anyone, regardless of range of motion or mobility, and Pilates classes are among other improvements. Also planned is more secure flooring for ZUMBA classes, but Rimer is still seeking a Zumba instructor.
"Resistance bands are used to help seniors increase strength and mobility," Rimer said. "Not everyone can get up from the floor, and our goal is to increase strength so that no matter where someone might fall, they can get back up."
Megan Rimer is the director of Yoga Bliss Studio on Stuart Avenue in Lake Wales. She works with other instructors, including Tina Peak and Autumn Cochella, to offer classes in wellness and nutrition at her downtown location.
Rimer has also added live-streamed classes. "Pretty much the only way I could have gotten this done is with the grant," Rimer explained, since, unlike most yoga studios she charges only $12 rather than $25 for a class.
Rimer, 39, has been teaching yoga in Lake Wales for several years, having worked with a former dance studio in the same downtown block. "Studio 6 dance studio was my first paid teaching gig," she said.
Among the instructors at Yoga Bliss are Tina Peak, who teaches chair and gentle yoga classes, "which are perfect for all ages and ideal for seniors," Rimer said. Autumn Cochella teaches yoga classes for all levels as well as Pilates. Cochella is also a nutritionist.
Rimer didn't come to her profession, or her location, by accident. Hearing that the city didn't have access to a yoga studio, her friend Briana Mayer found the location and encouraged her to open the Lake Wales studio and follow her passion.
"By the time I was 19 I has ulcers due to stress and this is when I started leaning into how mental health correlates with physical health," Rimer explained. "I became very aware that mental health was important to overall life, general happiness and daily functionality. Once I made changes in my own life and seen the results that followed, I knew that it was a passion that I wanted to share."
"Mental health is severely underrated when it comes to its impact on overall health and I wanted to create a community where these topics could not only be discussed, but worked with," Rimer said.
Since launching in 2021, Backing Small Businesses has provided over $9 million in grants to 1,180 small business owners nationwide. American Express and Main Street America initially created the grant program to help economically vulnerable small business owners recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and grow their businesses.
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