Cindy Sturm and Yoga instructor Heather Philip have been friends since junior high school. They share a strong bond of friendship that has kept them very close over the years.  Sturm's daughter Grace is Philip's nine-year-old god-daughter. 

Philip laughs when she recalls how she first got into yoga. "As Cindy likes to tell the story, for about two years before I started practicing yoga at all she said, 'You know you really should get into this yoga thing,'" said Philip, who wanted nothing to do with it at the time. 

"Don't tell me about that woo-woo baloney; I don't' want to hear it," she mused. 

But then, "Unbeknownst to her I took my first class and had the trite light bulb moment and have been practicing ever since," Philip laughed.

Little did Philip realize then how that newfound love of yoga would help her friend in a profound way some years later.

Last July, Grace began having severe headaches and was rushed to Danbury Hospital.  A tumor the size of a golf ball was found on her brain and she was airlifted to a children's hospital in Westchester to undergo a 13-hour surgery to remove the growth.  A week after surgery Grace slipped into a coma for seven weeks. 

Philip explained that, "As soon as Grace went into the hospital, Cindy and Andy [Grace's parents] started a blog to keep family and friends informed of her progress." The daily blog always included a request for prayers. 

Jane Martellino, Grace's librarian at Consolidated School in New Fairfield heard of her illness and knew she had to do something to help. Martellino extended the Sturm's prayer circle by emailing school librarians, teachers and friends asking whoever believed in the power of prayer to join "Prayer Partners for Grace".  

That prayer circle soon became nationwide with a representative in every state praying for Grace, and soon turned into the Yes Grace Rocks Foundation (YGR).

YGR provides support to families of children suffering with brain injuries such as covering medical costs, gas cards for travel to the hospital and funding alternative therapies such as music or pet therapy.

Philip also wanted to do something to help her god-daughter, so three months ago she approached the owners of the yoga studio where she teaches, Yoga Space on Federal Road in Brookfield, and they were on board immediately.

Yoga Space is owned by Natasha Raymond, Dina Ferrante, Gloria Owens and Glenn Tucker, whose studio has also held classes to benefit the Brookfield Education Foundation, CT Food Bank, St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Haiti May Care.

Philip is a certified Kripalu Yoga teacher and began working at the studio in 2001.  Each Sunday at 4 p.m. she teaches "Kripalu Yoga by Donation," a class in which the studio donates class time to benefit a local or international charity.  Any donation large or small is accepted for charity and a portion of the years' donations will go to benefit YGR. (Philip sits on the board of directors of the charity to represent the family.)

"The yoga has been a help to Cindy as well.  It has so many multifold benefits, from just giving her body a break from her days of sitting, standing or lifting, or just giving her mind a break," Philip said.

"This can be an energetic contribution, if financially at this time making a contribution is not within your means," she said of the Sunday charity classes, "but the organization then that puts value on a practice,  it ties the practice to a reason."

That reason is Grace Sturm.  Getting her the treatment she needs, getting the family the support they need to endure this fight, has been the focus of the community since Grace's surgery last July.

"The family was very active in their community and that community has gone above and beyond themselves to help Grace," Philip said.  "From the community of New Fairfield, to Chappaqua where they were staying at the hospital, to their church in Bethel, to their previous church in New Fairfield, to the Rotary Club, to friends and neighbors, it was like a ready-made army going into battle," she said.

The Sturm's church, Walnut Hill. has been "instrumental in purchasing whatever they needed," Philip stated. "It has been so overwhelming to see this community keeping watch over Grace."

Philip said that "since the beginning this has always been for charity," but it wasn't until three months ago when the foundation "was firmly established" that they began collecting for YGR.  The donations from the yoga class will be collected and donated to YGR at the end of the summer.

The mission of YGR is to "support, encourage and nurture families who find their lives turned upside down when their child is diagnosed with a brain tumor… and to stand by families in their time of need," according to their website.

YGR's next fundraiser is a cookbook where they will include not only recipes but "faith stories."  According to their website, the book "will be filled with recipes from special moments in our own lives. Recipes that nudge us to tell a little story that brings back a memory of the love and godliness of another person.  It will present the connection we feel between food and human kindness."

Grace's fighting spirit and the power of prayer brought her home on June 9, but she will continue to need a great deal of therapy to recover from the surgery.

"Physical, occupational and speech therapy will continue indefinitely because nerve damage is slow to heal and takes a lot of training," Andy Strum explained.

"It's incredibly touching that because of what Grace has had to endure thatstudents will get scholarships for college to go into the occupational and physical therapy fields, and that the financial load is shouldered by the foundation," he said.

For more information about the foundation or how you can help go to their website.